doomsday practice

After 20 years, Liao Weitong publishes another collection of novels. "This is the insomnia of the times that has possessed me, but I love this kind of awakening, the constant awakening."

In "Doomsday Practice," Earth is shrouded in a vast alien shroud, as vast as Mexico itself. Humanity knows no secrets before it. A poet and fellow passengers experience a plane malfunction, and this flight becomes the greatest mystery in aviation history. A Tibetan reincarnated child battles demons for hundreds of rounds, each a foreshadowing of doomsday. In the early years of the Republic of China, a long drought is followed by rain, and the mysterious mermaid becomes unpredictable. The ghost of an old love resurfaces, seeking only to die again...

Liao Weitong weaves between science fiction and fantasy, dreams and waking moments, weaving together trauma, violence, and injustice like a recurring nightmare, a constant awakening. "Doomsday" may not lie in the future, but rather everywhere. What shouldn't have happened has already happened, and what was about to happen is already in the past. "Practice" isn't about taking precautions, but about repetitive mourning, anticipating the return of the spirit.

Liao Weitong: My novels are written with a much more relaxed flow than my poetry, though I never forget my identity as a poet, the powerful presence of poetry in this literal universe that belongs to me. In this relaxation, I gradually rediscover the pleasure of structure, of fiction, and of imagination, something I never experienced when writing increasingly heavy and demanding poetry. I hope to blur the line between poetry and fiction, allowing the souls of author and reader, those who have left and those who remain, to wander through these mazes of words, a nighttime journey by candlelight.

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David Wang (Academician of the Academia Sinica): Liao Wai-tong isn't writing about Hong Kong's past and future. He's writing about Hong Kong's "beginning" and "end." What should have happened and shouldn't have happened has already happened, all evolving according to fate. Amidst this vast devastation, what happened to Hong Kong? While the grand narrative coherently depicts Hong Kong's future, Liao Wai-tong implies that Hong Kong's future is unclear, and needn't be.

Gao Yifeng (author): "Poetry parodies the novel, and the novel parodies the poetry." These parodies weave through history, classics, science fiction, fantasy, realism, and magic. The author, like a Russian doll, employs multiple meta-contexts, setting different timelines and locations, using vocabulary to unleash a literary storm upon this era, attempting to cleanse all semblance of sin and innocence.

2024-05-22

聯合文學

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