New Zealand is the exhibition’s “guest of honor,” and movers and shakers from its publishing industry and cultural realm will provide a varied cultural feast during the exhibition via lectures, forums and exhibits.

As arranged by the Publishers Association of New Zealand, more than a dozen writers of various genres and ages—including Man Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton, children’s writer and national treasure Joy Cowley, internationally famous Maori writer Witi Ihimaera, and the nation’s top crime novelist Paul Cleave—will visit to impart a sense of New Zealand’s literary charms to Taiwan’s readers.

More than a dozen top New Zealand authors, including crime novelist Paul Cleave and Man Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton, will make appearances at TIBE.

Now just 30, Catton won the Man Booker for The Luminaries in 2013. She is New Zealand’s biggest literary superstar to be visiting TIBE this year.

The Man Booker is the most prestigious prize given to English-language novelists. Catton is the second New Zealander to win the award. When the previous New Zealand winner—the part-Maori Keri Hulme—won the Man Booker in 1985, Catton had only just been born.

Catton was born in Canada, and her family moved to Christchurch when she was six. In 2009, she finished The Rehearsal for her master’s in creative writing at Victoria University in Wellington. It was awarded several national prizes. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won her the Man Booker at 28. She was the youngest author to win the prize since it was first awarded in 1969.

The Luminaries in its original English edition was more than 800 pages long. For its translation into traditional Chinese characters, it has been divided into two volumes. The novel unfolds in the 1860s in Ho­ki­tika, a gold-rush town on the west coast of the South Island. The 12 parts of the novel each start with an astrological chart of the Western zodiac. Featuring suspenseful twists of plot, it introduces us to a series of murders, drug-addicted prostitutes, detectives, and maritime adventure seekers. Its sensationalism, gloominess, ghosts, and weird spectacles give it much the flavor of a Victorian novel.

After winning the Man Booker, Catton explained in media interviews that she had always wanted to write a story about the gold rush. It was a period of New Zealand history that exerted a strong pull on her. She described the affirmation of the literary prize as a “victory for New Zealand” and expressed the hope that readers of The Luminaries will also travel to Hokitika.

New Zealand is part of the English-speaking world, and international books are quickly introduced there. Novels and biographies by British and American authors take the lion’s share of the market.

Witi Ihi­ma­era is the world’s most famous Maori writer. His novels The Whale Rider, Nights in the Garden of Spain, and Medicine Woman have all been turned into films.

Maori identity is one of the main themes of Ihi­ma­era’s novels. Now 71, he has been occupied in recent years with writing his memoirs. The first volume, Māori Boy: A Memoir of Childhood, was published at the end of last year. In New Zealand’s literary realm, Ihi­ma­era counts as a senior figure. Then there’s 80-year-old Joy Cowley, who has won international renown in the field of children’s literature. Cowley’s “Greedy Cat,” “Snake and Lizard” and other series have been translated into Chinese and published in Taiwan.

New Zealand authors write in numerous genres. In recent years New Zealand’s leading crime writer Paul Cleave has become quite well known in international book markets, regarded as an equal to the great contemporary Scandinavian crime writers. Christchurch serves as the backdrop for his novels. Since 2006, when he published The Cleaner, his first book, he has published eight novels, all bestsellers. Among the translations into more than 15 languages are Chinese versions of The Cleaner and Blood Men published in Taiwan. A translation of Collecting Cooper is being rushed into print for TIBE.

Since several authors are speaking at TIBE’s New Zealand pavilion, Taiwan readers won’t find it hard to get a first impression of New Zealand literature.

But if you want to advance your understanding of New Zealand literature, Chen Jung-­hsuan, assistant professor of applied foreign languages at Tak­ming University of Science and Technology, who earned her PhD in comparative literature at the University of Auckland, suggests starting with the classics.

These include works by authors such as Frank Sargeson (1903–1982), Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) and Janet Frame (1924–2004), as well as current writers such as ­Kapka Kas­sa­bova and Albert Wendt, a poet of Samoan heritage.

New Zealand is an immigrant society, and strictly speaking, everyone apart from the Maori are immigrants. Consequently, when you talk about New Zealand literature, you can’t avoid talking about immigration. Chen explains that the experience of the two world wars prompted the early white immigrants to reconsider and redefine their relationship to the Maori. That repositioning was reflected­ in their literature—the “Pa­keha literature” of the postwar era.

For instance, Sargeson is a writer of European extraction born on the North Island. When he writes about daily life, although he isn’t overtly prejudiced, he nonetheless still reveals a white male perspective.

Mansfield, Frame and Kassa­bova are three women writers with distinct sensibilities. Mansfield and Frame, Chen says, write about the tribulations and confinements of marriage and family. On the other hand Kassa­bova, who was born in Bulgaria, writes about the struggles of immigrants to adapt to their new home and about the nuances of the immigrant state of mind that “both seeks identification as a New Zealander and simultaneously resists it.”

Questions about status and identity are also important themes in works by overseas Chinese writers in New Zealand. Kevin Chapman, previous president of the Publishers Association of New Zealand and project director of New Zealand’s “guest of honor” pavilion at the Taiwan International Book Exhibition, describes Alison Wong, a third-generation Chinese New Zealander, as representative. Her novel As the Earth Turns Silver and her poetry collection Cup are meditations on ethnic identification and the status of immigrants in New Zealand society.

The Whale Rider author Witi Ihimaera has completed the first volume of his memoirs: Māori Boy: A Memoir of Childhood.

In the Taiwan book market, New Zealand literature has hardly made a ripple. The limited impact is largely because of a lack of translations.

New Zealand: A Literary History, published in 2004, was the first book in Chinese to introduce New Zealand literature. The author is the novelist and historian Stevan Eldred-Grigg, who currently teaches in mainland China, and the translator is Annie Shih, a Taiwanese immigrant living in Christchurch.

Shih once served as head of the New Zealand Chinese Writers Association of Christchurch. It was at her suggestion that Eldred-Grigg was invited to contribute a monthly column to Ming Dao Arts and Literature introducing New Zealand literature and its leading figures. Hence, New Zealand: A Literary History is truly a collection of essays about New Zealand literature written for a Chinese-language audience.

The book is a mix of Eldred-Grigg’s personal recollections and commentary on New Zealand’s literature and writers. Its scope includes colonial literature, war literature, Maori literature, labor literature and urban literature, as well as discussions of New Zealand history, society, and culture. Shih has also translated Eldred-Grigg’s novel Oracles and Miracles, which is set in Christchurch.

Before teaming up with Eldred-Grigg, Shih worked with Joan Rosier-Jones, past president of the New Zealand Society of Authors, on a special column for the Taiwan children’s newspaper Mandarin Daily News, providing a comprehensive look at New Zealand children’s literature via profiles of 25 masters in the field, including Margaret Mahy, Joy Cowley, and William Taylor.

Starting last year, Shih has been writing a column for the The Sun Paper, Christchurch’s local Chinese-language paper, providing a deep yet accessible introduction to New Zealand literature, film and other cultural phenomena. She continues to use her pen to build bridges between cultures.

That’s right—to build bridges. Taiwan and New Zealand are indeed actively building bridges of exchange. The two nations have a lot in common: both are predominantly immigrant societies, both have colonial pasts, both are island nations, and both have populations of Abori­ginal inhabitants. What’s more, both have rich literary traditions, however different their methods and styles.

Apart from its blue skies, white clouds, pristine wilderness, and sheep, how much do we know about New Zealand? A deeper understanding starts with literature.

Though lacking large chain bookstores, New Zealand has thriving independent bookshops to provide spiritual and intellectual sustenance. The photo shows a corner inside Wellington’s Unity Books.

Annie Shih, who lives in Christchurch, was one of the first translators to introduce New Zealand’s literature to Taiwan.

More than a dozen top New Zealand authors, including crime novelist Paul Cleave and Man Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton, will make appearances at TIBE.