Ahmam's Island
Chung Wenyin
P.R.A Publishing (2012)
ISBN: 9780982140796
Reviewed by F.T. Donereau for Rebecca’s Reads (2/14)

A wise person whose name I can't now recall once said, “Everything is political.” Chung Wenyin's novel, “Ahmam's Island,” is essentially the story of a young woman struggling with the culture and family values of rural Taiwan, and the city life she has thrown herself into. It is the story of her desire to be an independent person, fighting to be free of the wants and constraints of a hard, overbearing mother. Independence. Tradition. Societal mores. Roles of women. All these things and more are here. And though the story is told in the guise of a simple tale of a life being lived, I believe the political underpinnings (whether conscious or otherwise) resonating throughout add much gravitas to the work.
The creation of Ahmam, the main character in this novel, is, I think, a brilliant one. She encompasses all the things, intelligence, wit, whimsy, a young woman ought to, while still being sometimes naïve, vulnerable, and indecisive. She appears perhaps, to the older established types in these pages, as one who is off kilter, on a wrong road, avoiding or failing to settle into life, marriage, children, steady employment. The descriptions of Ahmam and her friends, their ways and the worlds they inhabit, are a triumph. The lives they lead are put down in a way that sets the reader right there beside them; you can feel the dynamics of their cities and villages, the everyday smells of the food and dwellings. Miss Wenyin has the power to bring to life what she is writing of. It is a gift that makes storytelling of the highest order.
One of the great creations in “Ahmam's Island,” is the title character's mother, Lin Jinju. As depicted, she is a fierce piece of work, flawed greatly by her narrowness and temper, but also a figure to be respected, a woman holding things together through a life of struggle, a survivor who has carved out an existence in the face of much adversity. It is a joy to see the way this woman interacts with her own contemporaries, the way they manipulate and scorn, wheedle and scrap. Ahmam, back in the place of her childhood, allows this mother figure to rise up and subtly dominate the story, even when she is not in the foreground. It is a delightful achievement.
Honestly, there is great beauty in this tale. Ahmam waking to the smells of cooking bring back Proust's famous tea soaked cake, how it triggered his memory. We are allowed, in “Ahmam's Island,” to travel around in the young woman's memories, to see her life in full by what she thinks at various times. It is the way we humans often behave, and, I think, an intelligent way to get across a story. Really, I was delighted with this work. There is a brutal frankness to much of the style of the writing. At the same time, there is a curious, ethereal quality to the characters and places. It is both hard and rather full of otherworldliness. I imagine the translators, C.J. Anderson and Steven M. Anderson, played a strong, perhaps major part in retaining the integrity of the text. All together, it is a piece of literature filled with a great deal, a thing that adds up to marvelous reading. ( )