C.J. ANDERSON-WU (吳介禎) is a Taiwanese writer who has published two collections about Taiwan's military dictatorship (1949–1987), known as The White Terror: Impossible to Swallow (2017) and The Surveillance (2020). She is currently working on her third book Endangered Youth—to Hong Kong.
Her short stories have been shortlisted for several international literary awards, including the Art of Unity Creative Award by the International Human Rights Art Festival.
She also won the Strands Lit International Flash Fiction Competition, the Invisible City Blurred Genre Literature Competition, and the Wordweavers Literature Contest.
Since her writing is largely historical, here are the notes provided for each poem.
Poem 1: Candle Glow in Ukraine and Hong King
"The publishing industry in Ukraine experienced significant growth after the outbreak of the war, as reading became one of the few activities people could engage in during power outages caused by bombardments. Additionally, the invasion led the Ukrainian public to value their own culture, history, and language more deeply.
On June 4th each year, people in Hong Kong would hold a candle vigil at Victoria Park for those who died during the Tiananmen Square Crackdown in 1989. However, since the implementation of the National Security Law by China in 2020, any event commemorating the slaughter of June 4th has become illegal. Several pro-democracy activists who persisted in continuing the vigil have been arrested and imprisoned without due process of law."
Poem 2: Footprints Left By Your Body Heat
"Footprints Left By Your Body Heat" pays respect to two professors from the Journalism College of Fudan University in Shanghai, who stood between policemen and students during the protests against severe restrictions for zero-Covid policy."
Poem 3: Secrets of A Wounded City
"Denise Ho, a Hong Kong pop music star, actively supported the Umbrella Movement in 2014 and the Anti-extradition protest in 2019. Now she is silenced, as were millions of pro-democracy Hong Kongers, by the draconian National Security Law implemented by China in 2020. Her song “Secrets of A Wounded City” was from a 2006 movie Confession of Pain."
Poem 4: There Is No Illegal Vigil
"Tonyee Chow Hang-Tung, a Hong Kong lawyer and pro-democracy activist, was convicted for inciting an unlawful assembly in 2021 under China’s National Security Law. The so-called unlawful assembly was the vigil held in Hong Kong for victims of the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, while “64” or “June Fourth” among other keywords of the massacre are filtered out from all media in China, and Chinese people have no knowledge about it. Tonyee Chow Hang-Tung refuses to plead guilty for a lenient sentence, currently, she is incarcerated in Stanley Prison."
