Chimera Literary Salon| Transfiguring Taipei: Urban Lights and Shadows in Du Lian Kui

‍Event Content

Da-Hong Wang, Taiwan’s first-generation postwar architect, spent a decade transposing Oscar Wilde’s classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray from Victorian London to Taipei in the 1960s and 1970s, rewriting it as Du Lian-Kui for his own era. Through this temporal displacement, Wang not only presents a universal allegory of human nature but also embeds his aesthetic reflections and observations of Taipei within the novel’s narrative. In 2021, this work was published through a collaborative effort between the Winsing Arts Foundation and the Society for Research and Preservation of Wang Da-hong's Architecture.

For this lecture series, the Foundation specially invited Chia-Hsien Yang (writer and Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Literature, National Tsing Hua University) to curate the program. Analyzing from a literary perspective, she introduces Du Lian-Kui to contemporary Taiwan and discusses the significance of reading classic works for modern readers. Simultaneously, by examining Wang’s reflections on his era revealed in the work, she guides participants to “approach Da-Hong Wang” from perspectives beyond architecture.

Following the opening session, the second lecture features poet Wai-Tong Liu and novelist Bo-Yen Chen, who will share their insights. Drawing on their writing experiences and reflections after reading Du Lian-Kui, they will discuss how they use words to convey their observations of Taipei’s streets and cityscape.