Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"[Ezell] immortalizes individuals who might be thought to have little claim to immortality of any kind. This kind of awareness is found in some of the finest books, and one of several reasons why
A Far Corner is so magnificent, and so richly deserving of classic status."—Bradley Winterton,
Tapei Times“This is a marvelous journey into the worlds of indigenous peoples in the coastal, seaside mountains of Taiwan, pursuing their age-old habits in the backwaters of empires, Chinese and Japanese, old and modern. Ezell, a young American musician and poet, writes with fine story-telling skill.”—John Balaban, author of
Remembering Heaven’s Face
“Scott Ezell is a highly talented, very imagistic writer who packs his work with action and colorful sensory-driven details. He has a knack for showing us a people from an insider as well as an outsider perspective. Ezell writes in a beautiful, lyrical prose style that is colorful and full of texture and emotion.”—Mark Spitzer, author of Season of the Gar
“Reading Scott Ezell’s A Far Corner I gradually became absorbed and actually delighted. Like true adventures this story is about something which, chances are, you will know nothing and consequently become pleasurably informed.”—Jim Harrison, author of Returning to Earth
“There’s magic in this brilliant, lyrical, and deeply informed ethnography. Ezell, happily, never gets in the way of the Austronesian artists, musicians, and craftsmen whose self-conscious recreation and performance of indigenous identity he has so closely and sympathetically observed. So much comprehension has rarely come with so much pleasure and satisfaction.”—James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology, Yale University
Table of ContentsPreface: A Far Corner
1. E-ki on the Beach
2. The Sugar Factory
3. Dinner with the Chief
4. A House at the End of the Road
5. Beneath the Skin
6. Carving a Carving Knife
7. Between the City and the Sea
8. Purification
9. Hinoki Studio
10. Songs of the Amis
11. Big and Small Things
12. A Woodcarver
13. Hunting with the Bunun
A Gift of the Spirits
New and Old Growth
Takivahlas: Place Where Two Rivers Meet
Down the Mountain
14. Live Music
15. Shelter from the Sun
16. Coupled Orbits
17. The Chief Is Dead
18. An Apartment in Town
19. Homecomings
20. A Long Swim
21. Betel Nut Brothers
22. E-ki on the Boulevard
23. E-ki across the Ocean
24. Departure
Epilogue: Further Fields
Acknowledgments
Appendix 1: Romanization, Names, Transcription, and Currency
Appendix 2: A Note on Ethnic Classifications
Selected Bibliography
