The Indonesian entries were the most numerous. Dwiita Vita took the top prize for The Portrait Behind the Formosan Frame. Keyzia Chan won an honorable mention for WIN, which tells the tale of a foreign laborer fleeing her place of employment. The compelling story features an ambiguous ending that leaves a lot to readers’ imaginations.

The two Vietnamese winners both have doctorates. Pham Hung-Hiep won the special jury prize for Mother’s Game. In poetic prose, he describes a mother who eagerly awaits her son’s return from living abroad. In The Dream, Le Hoang-Hiep, another PhD, writes about the unrealized dreams of migrant workers. It’s a poignant and sad look at foreign workers’ futile efforts to change their fates.

The Thai writer Anan Srilawut was the oldest prizewinner. He won for the autobiographical The Treasure Chest of Friendship and Music. A musician in Thailand, in Taiwan Anan both operates an overhead crane and bangs out moving works on the keyboard.

Writing “their” stories

Dwiita Vita, winner of the top prize, works as a domestic caregiver. Dwiita describes how she studied information engineering at university, but had to drop out and get a job because of financial pressures. Then the company she was working for went bankrupt in the poor economy. She was forced to leave her toddler behind and come to Taiwan to work. Meanwhile, her husband, who remained in Indonesia, fell in love with someone else. Dwiita decided to end the marriage and raise her children on her own.

The inability to find work or earn sufficient wages at home is why many foreign workers leave their home countries to come to Taiwan. Although Taiwan certainly offers jobs, everyone experiences different situations. Dwiita writes about social realities in Taiwan: workers who are cheated by their employers or forced to work long hours, issues connected to days off and religious practice, exploitation by employment agents.... Although the problems workers­ face are systemic nature in and will require political and regulatory solutions, Dwiita writes to get more people to confront these issues. She plans on using the prize money to establish a small library in her home town, giving neighborhood kids a chance to explore the world of reading.

Dwiita’s work contract concludes in January of next year, and she is looking forward to reuniting with her children. She also hopes to have an opportunity to turn her experiences in Taiwan into a book so that she can realize her dream of becoming a writer.

Taking a different approach

Keyzia Chan, who hails from East Java, has long been looking to distinguish herself from other foreign workers. With the blessing of her employer, she registered for management classes at Indonesia’s Universitas Ter­buka, which has classrooms in Taipei.

Added to her work as a caregiver, the coursework isn’t easy, but ­Keyzia is determined. She hopes that she can take the money she’s earned at work and the knowledge she’s learned in class to open her own coffee shop when she returns to Indonesia.

Keyzia uses her spare time to write. She has joined the Forum Ling­kar Pena, an Indonesian writers’ association, and she shares her work online. Her submission WIN won the prize from the jury comprising children of immigrants. In her view, foreign workers who run from their employers must have reasons for doing so. She tries to capture their complex emotions, however difficult they are to put into words. The ending provides space for readers’ imaginations, helping the work resonate in their minds long afterwards.

Due to work reasons, it’s not easy for ­Keyzia to get out, so we took advantage of her breaks between classes to interview her and take her photograph. As she jokes with her classmates and takes selfies, she finally has a chance to behave like the 20-something she is.

Mother’s Game: Countdown of loneliness

The winner of the special jury prize, Pham Hung-Hiep, was born in Hanoi in 1984. His work Mother’s Game is a feat of narrative virtuosity, and its poetic language earned the appreciation of the judges.

The loneliness of contemporary people is a main theme of Pham’s work, a theme for which he has a personal frame of reference: In 1997 his older brother left home, giving him an opportunity to look at how his mother dealt with missing her oldest son and coped with the hole his absence left in her life. In 2004 Pham left Vietnam to study in France and then later found his way to Taiwan. Two years ago, on a dark and rainy afternoon, he wrote this poetic meditation on his mother and loneliness.

Pham is a doctoral student in management at Chinese Culture University. He has a great interest in artistic and creative work. In his spare time, he writes poetry and fiction. At some point in the future he hopes to publish a collection of his works. Currently, he has a plan to write a book on the lives of contemporary Vietnamese youth, comprising 20 vign­ettes of which Mother’s Game is but one.

Separated from his family, Pham longs to soon finish his studies so that he can end his own loneliness and be reunited with his wife and child.

Dreaming a dream of a foreign land

Le Hoang-Hiep was the winner of the prize awarded by the juvenile jury. Although he studied electrical engineering, he has a strong interest in writing. When asked how he gathers material, Le says that he sometimes translates or interprets for Vietnamese women who have come to Taiwan as foreign workers. He has recorded their stories. He hopes to imitate his favorite author Nguyen Ngoc-Tu, whose works were once banned in Vietnam due to their focus on social issues, such as disparities of wealth. Le believes that drawing attention to these stories can help to improve the lives of foreign workers.

He explains that foreign women who come to Taiwan have dreams that they hope will come true here. But every­one has different luck, and some of them can only attain those dreams when they are asleep. There’s a bit of a dream-within-a-dream flavor to it, and his deft handling of the material earned him the judges’ admiration.

Here for seven years, Le is already quite accustomed to life in Taiwan. His first child was born just last year, and now his life revolves around that “little Buddha.” As soon as his wife finishes her studies, the family will return to Vietnam to look for work. Before they return, Le hopes that his parents will come on a visit to see what Taiwan has to offer.

Writing, music, crane

“I feel that I am a tree that has been uprooted and planted in a distant location,” reads a passage of A Treasure Chest of Friendship and Music by Anan Sri­la­wut, the only Thai winner in this year’s awards. “Getting accustomed to a new environment is hard. Fortunately, I have Taiwanese friends who look out for me.”

Anan came to Taiwan to work when he was 45, his daughter 19, and his son 15. Both children are at an age when they cost a lot of money. He says that he is grateful for the opportunity to come to Taiwan and make higher wages that his family can use to build a house and pay for the children’s educations. And he uses his spare time to take international division classes at the Christian University of Thailand. All of this is beyond what he had previously dreamed possible.

In his spare time Anan reads and plays music. In 2012, he earned third place in a poetry competition for foreign workers sponsored by the Tai­pei City Government. That encouraged him, so when he heard the call for submissions for the Second Taiwan Literature Awards, he thought he’d try writing his own story.

Soon there’s going to be another writing competition, and Anan hopes to win. He wants to use the prize money to buy a keyboard. Multitalented Anan is proficient at various instruments, from guitar to keyboards. He also enthusiastically participates in a variety of public service activities, whether church-sponsored charity events or prison visits. Another dream of his is to form a musical group. Anan is trying his hand at composing music and writing lyrics. He says that in his home town of Roi Et in Northwest Thailand, there isn’t a high level of literacy, so he uses music to describe his life in Taiwan to his friends and family back home.

During the years he’s been in Taiwan, two members of his close family have passed away, but Anan has kept a positive outlook. When asked how he deals with life’s trials and tribulations, Anan thinks for a moment before saying: “I think about my two children. No matter how difficult things are, I’ve got to press on for them.”

Anan plays the khene, an instrument unique to northwestern Thailand. It features 16 bamboo tubes arranged in two rows, which emit plaintive notes in the middle and lower registers. A tune echoing in Anan’s dormitory evokes a mood of the homesick wanderer.

More stories to tell

As they experienced birthing pains in their first year, the Taiwan Literature Awards for Migrants were jokingly called a phrase in Chinese that sounds like the English word “migrant” but means “buying a piece of land.” In the second year of the awards, nearly 200 works were submitted that captured their authors’ experiences in Taiwan. The crowd­sourcing website FlyingV has already provided funding for a collection of the winning works.

Although the sponsor hasn’t committed for a third year, Chen Fang-ming, jury convenor for the first year of the awards, notes: “I’m confident that we can keep it going! These awards are highly meaningful both in providing a platform for immigrant voices and in shaping the values and beliefs of native Taiwanese, so that we can together build a diverse, fair and just society.”

Dwiita Vita from Indonesia won the top prize at the Taiwan Literature Award for Migrants. Confident in writing’s power to effect social change, she courageously wrote about the true situation of foreign laborers in Taiwan. The prize has reawakened a dream she has long held of becoming a writer.

Wearing the yellow uniform of Indonesia’s Universitas Terbuka, Keyzia Chan takes advantage of her days off to attend classes on Guanqian Road in Taipei City. Unlike impersonal online courses, these classes feature teachers in the flesh, who lead class discussions. As she chats and laughs with classmates afterwards, Keyzia looks completely at ease with another of her identities: student.

“Oh, Mother is soon to see her child. Just seven days, six hours, and one minute to go. Just seven days and six hours to go….” Pham Hung Hiep describes a mother back home counting down her child’s return by the minute and the hour. In a work about loneliness, these marks of time make up the very warp and weft of the character’s life. (courtesy of Pham Hung Hiep)

In his dormitory room, which he has decorated with repurposed materials, Anan Srilawut plays the khene, a woodwind instrument. However small the space, it has everything he needs. On the wall he’s installed wooden shelves and a photograph of the Thai king. There’s a laptop computer atop the stereo, and secondhand guitars next to the bed. A diligent student, Anan always gets up early to study before going to work.