The Taipei Cultural Center in New York is excited to announce that Taiwanese picture book author Lian-En Lin (林廉恩) and translator Lin King (金翎) will be featured at the 2024 Brooklyn Book Festival (BKBF) on September 28–29, where they will showcase their remarkable works, Home and The Boy from Clearwater.
Lian-En Lin, the winner of the 2021 Bologna Ragazzi Award in Fiction, will introduce Home, her acclaimed picture book published in the U.S. by Reycraft Books. Through minimalist text and vibrant collage illustrations, Home immerses readers in the sights, sounds, and spirit of a lively Taiwanese community.
On September 28, during BKBF’s Children’s Day, Lin will lead an engaging collage workshop where participants are invited to design their own dream house, inspired by her picture book Home.
In addition, The Boy from Clearwater (來自清水的孩子), a graphic novel series written by Yu Pei-yun and illustrated by Zhou Jian-xin, tells the powerful true story of Mr. Tsai Kun-lin, who endured a decade of imprisonment during Taiwan’s authoritarian “White Terror” era. The English edition, translated by Lin King and published by Levine Querido, won the 2023 Freeman Award.
On September 29, Lin King will participate in the panel “History in Comics” on BKBF’s flagship Festival Day. There, she’ll discuss her translation process for The Boy from Clearwater, sharing insights into how she brought Taiwan’s complex history to life by translating from three languages–Taiwanese, Japanese, and Mandarin.
The panel will be moderated by Anjali Singh, who is renowned for championing Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis. Also featured on the panel are Glynnis Fawkes, author/illustrator of 1177 B.C.: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed, and John Vasquez Mejias, author of The Puerto Rican War: A Graphic History.
Since its launch in 2006, the Brooklyn Book Festival (BKBF) has grown into New York City’s largest free literary event, bringing together more than 200 U.S. and international authors and publishers each year. The 2024 festival, taking place from September 22 to 30, will feature a dynamic lineup of programs, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and graphic novels, along with a Literary Marketplace for readers of all interests.
2024 Brooklyn Book Festival Featuring Books from Taiwan:
Tear, Glue, and Snip Your Way to Your Dream Home
Saturday, September 28, 12:00pm EST
Workshop Room 400, NYU Tandon, 5 MetroTech Center
https://brooklynbookfestival.org/event/tear-glue-and-snip-your-way-to-your-dream-home/
History in Comics
Sunday, September 29, 4:00pm EST
Center for Brooklyn History, 128 Pierrepont St.
Panelists: Lin King (The Boy from Clearwater), Glynnis Fawkes (1177 B.C.: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed), and John Vasquez Mejias (The Puerto Rican War: A Graphic History)
https://brooklynbookfestival.org/event/history-in-comics/
About Lian-En Lin
Born and raised in Taiwan, picture book author Lian-En Lin excels in using mixed media collage, acrylic paint, and water-based crayons. Her creative content is often inspired by her current feelings and life experiences, typically starting with images before incorporating words. By day, she is a calm and gentle illustrator, but by night, she transforms into a frantic mother. Lian-En has been selected for the Bologna Children’s Illustration Award three times and has received the 2021 Bologna Ragazzi Award in the Literature Category as well as Taiwan’s 2021 Golden Tripod Award for her picture book Home.
About Lin King
Lin King is a writer and translator from Taipei, Taiwan. Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Boston Review, and Joyland, among others, and has received the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Translations from Mandarin and Japanese into English include Yang Shuang-Zi’s novel Taiwan Travelogue (Graywolf, forthcoming 2024) and the historical graphic novel series The Boy from Clearwater (Levine Querido, 2023-2024) by Yu Pei-Yun and Zhou Jian-Xin. Lin holds a BA from Princeton University and an MFA from Columbia University, where she has taught undergraduate writing.