Five letters, delayed by 56 years: a memoir born during the London lockdown
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:00 pm to 7:00 pm
- Venue
- Brunei Gallery SOAS
- Room
- B104
- Event type
- Seminar
About this event
The Centre of Taiwan Studies is delighted to welcome Dr Chang Yi-Lung to give a talk on her book A Chance Meeting in Spring, a deeply moving reflection on her search to understand her grandfather Huang Wen-Kung’s execution during Taiwan’s White Terror.
In this talk, Chang Yi-Lung discusses her book, A Chance Meeting in Spring, primarily written in London during the Covid-19 pandemic. The global experience of isolation and stillness provided a unique backdrop for Chang to confront a deeper, familial silence: the execution of her grandfather, Huang Wen-Kung, during Taiwan’s White Terror in 1953, and the discovery of his confiscated final testament half a century later.
Bridging the gap between history, science, and diaspora, Chang applies the lens of epigenetics to explain how political violence is not just recorded in archives but inscribed into the body, transmitting trauma across generations. She explores how the physical distance of living in London allowed her to dissect the physiological roots of her family's pain, transforming a legacy of silence into a powerful act of remembrance.
About the speaker
Chang Yi-Lung 張旖容 is a writer and activist with a PhD in Biology, and also works as a UK property investor and consultant. A third-generation survivor of political violence, the discovery of her grandfather's execution compelled her to become an activist. She launched a campaign that successfully forced the government to establish a protocol in 2011 for returning the confiscated letters of political victims to their families. After a decade spent unearthing her family's past, she decided to record the entire process of recovering the lost testament and turn it into a book: A Chance Meeting in Spring. Chang Yi-Lung is currently based in London.
Image credit: Europeana via Unsplash
