From Wild Fire to the Big Sea: In Conversation with Lung Ying-tai

Register for Zoom link here

Please join us for a special online event with influential writer and cultural critic Lung Ying-tai, in dialogue with CCS Director Michael Berry. They will discuss Lung’s body of work, from the The Wild Fire (1985) to her most recent book Under Dawu Mountain (2020), along with broader reflections on the relationship between literature and social change in the Chinese-speaking world.


Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) is one of the Taiwan’s most popular and beloved writers, a literary critic and public intellectual. She served as Taiwan’s inaugural Minister of Culture from 2012-2014.

She is author of more than two dozen books, including essays, fiction, reportage, and literary criticism. Her 1985 book The Wild Fire created a major cultural stir for its honest and introspective look at the social and political problems facing contemporary Taiwan society and is often credited for helping to usher in a more critical and democratic spirit in the 1980s. Her bestselling 2009 book of historical non-fiction Big River, Big Sea has been awarded numerous book prizes, including the Hong Kong Book Award. Her other books include In Europe, A Letter to Taiwan, Bottoms Up, Thomas Mann, Reflections on a Century, Seeing You Off, Watching the End of the Century Approach and a four-volume Selected Works of Lung Yingtai. Her most recent publication is Under Dawu Mountain.

She is a Hung Leung Hao Ling Distinguished Fellow in Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and Chair Professor of National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. She holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Kansas State University. After receiving her doctorate, Lung Yingtai taught in several universities, including City University of New York, Taiwan Central University and the University of Heidelberg. During a 13 years’ sojourn in Europe, Lung was a regular contributor to newspapers such as the Frankfurter Allgemeinung Zeitung and the Berlin Tageszeitung. Born in Taiwan to Chinese parents from the mainland, she has lived in the United States, Germany, and Hong Kong.

This event is part of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies’ "Taiwan in Dialogue” Lecture Series - Spotlight Taiwan Project, supported by a grant from the Taiwan Academy, Los Angeles and Ministry of Culture, Taiwan.

Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies, Asia Pacific Center