Migrants of Today, Migrants of Tomorrow in Wu Ming-yi’s Literary Works

Abstract

In this chapter, I explore the theme of the figure of the “migrant” in the literary works of contemporary Taiwanese writer Wu Ming-yi (吳明益; b. 1971). Wu Ming-yi is the author of prose collections on butterflies and other animal species endemic to Taiwan, novels on the history of the Second World War in the Pacific, and short stories and novels exploring the coming climate crisis (his novel translated into English The Man with the Compound Eyes has even been the first novel to be referred to as “Climate Fiction” by American journalist Dan Bloom, known to be the first user of the “Cli-Fi” term). For Wu Ming-yi, the phenomenon of migration is to the history of Taiwan (especially in the twentieth century), to its present (such as recent immigration displacements from Southeast Asia), and to its future (climate refugees). In this chapter, I analyze how the theme of migration as it appears in Wu’s works is at the same time a marker of both human history and environmental history in Taiwan, as well as a condition of (co)existence that inevitably transforms the neighborhoods of yesterday and tomorrow. Based on reading several works by Wu Ming-yi (collections of sanwen—prose essays—and works of fiction), my contribution will put Wu’s literature in perspective with ecocritical and philosophical studies and authors from different regions.