Killer Husband (40th Anniversary Edition)

Li Ang has unleashed the sharpest butcher knife in the Chinese literary world, slashing at totalitarianism and patriarchy.
The most powerful novel of the 1980s, once again one of the top 100 Chinese novels of the 20th century.
The most avant-garde, topical, and controversial eccentric novel in Taiwanese literary history.
‧ "The Killer" celebrates its 40th anniversary with a collector's edition. ‧ Includes the first day's print run, old editions and covers from various countries, a chronology of major events, and other valuable historical records. ‧ Emerging illustrator Zhuo Peixin draws the cover and illustrations. Lucheng orphan Lin Shi is betrothed to butcher Chen Jiangshui by her uncle. The betrothal gift is pork that the butcher gave to the Lin family.
A forty-year-old butcher, in the prime of his life, would spend the day in the pig oven, his butcher knife slicing back and forth across the animal's flesh. At night, he would press his knife into the woman's body, thrusting it in and out, white in, red out. The neighbors all said that in the night wind, they could always hear the woman's mournful cries, like the squeals of a pig.
A butcher lives in a desolate suburb of a small town. Late at night, the wind rustles through the bamboo forest, often accompanied by the cries of abused women. There are also legends of female ghosts haunting the ancient well. However, no matter how vicious a ghost is, it cannot outsmart the human heart. Women endure the abuse of men at night, and during the day, they must endure the taunts of gossipers, feigning concern—they assume that women are wailing from pleasure, insatiable in their demands, and shameless.
Sex is torture, sex is violence, sex is humiliation, sex is anything but love. Women are like pieces of meat on the chopping block, chopped off by the brutality of the opposite sex's flesh and the harsh words of the same sex, one cut after another, until the woman finally reaches out and grabs the handle of the knife, and cuts down the man...
The novel was written after the Formosa Incident and the Great Review, during a period of intense political tension and darkness and violence. From its award-winning process to its serialization, it was fraught with controversy. Conservatives accused the author of immorality, even sending her sanitary napkins and underwear as humiliation. The backlash was a frantic attempt to cover up, but it took years before the book was finally published, proving its futile efforts. It initially spread beyond Lukang, becoming a representative of women's literature; it later spread beyond Taiwan, where copyrights were sold in multiple languages.
Over the past half century, has social progress brought an end to sexual harassment and assault? Or does the patriarchal structure remain unshakable? What is the solution?

2024-05-02

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9789570870909