Zhang Yuge

Introduction

Born in Taichung in 1989 and holding a degree from the Department of Medicine, National Yangming University, Yuge is a former clinician turned full-time writer. He has received grants from the Ministry of Culture for young writers and ongoing subsidies from the National Art Association. His works have been displayed at the National Museum of Taiwan Literature and he has won awards from the Ministry of Culture for his television scripts. He has been an instructor at Jinche Literature Lecture Hall and National Jinan International University. He was a writer-in-residence at the Taipei International Book Fair. He is the author of "Huangwen", "Sophistry", and "A City with only a Glimmer of Light Left". He sold the copyright for "Huangwen" in four countries, and a dramatized version of this novel is currently scheduled to be produced as a television series.

Resident planning

Writing of Yuge’s next novel, "The Long Night of Life and Death". The phrase "The Long Night of Life and Death" comes from a sentence in the seventh chapter of "Cheng Wei Shi Lun" (Discourse on the Perfection of Consciousness-only): "I don't get real enlightenment, in a dream of permanence, so the Buddha said it is the long night of life and death." In this era of plague, we face a myriad of pressures on the path to personal enlightenment. The protagonist, Ye Zihua, is an infectious-disease doctor. After waking up after a car accident, she finds herself and her daughter in a strange world. People are rushing to flee the city, and the government has launched a large-scale screening and quarantine campaign. Ye Zihua sends her injured daughter to a hospital, but she discovers that its infectious department has been paralyzed by an unknown disease, which was suspected to be triggered by an unknown spirochete. The disease is the cause of a so-called "mainspring syndrome". According to the preliminary research of the chief physician, patients with this syndrome experience symptoms of dementia such as simplified thinking, unceasingly repeated behavior and language, and, in severe cases, an almost complete deletion of memory that would send the patient into a rapid spiral ending in death. Inspired by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the story strives to show the paradoxes woven into contemporary life such as fake news, censorship, and various current social issues. People urgently need guidelines, and yet, at the same time, are suspicious of the authenticity of the guidelines that are given. The whole world has been kidnapped by ideology, and everyone seeks true awakening...