Plum Rain

Taiwan in the 1940s, at the end of the Japanese colonial era. As the Pacific War inexorably approaches, eight-year-old Umeko grows up sheltered in a small town in the north of the island. She is proud of her good Japanese and adores her older brother, the star of the local baseball team. When war reaches the island and Taiwan’s political and social situation changes radically within a short period of time, her life gets caught up in a whirlpool of guilt and crime that still holds the family captive seventy years later.

The events of that time remain obscure until two of Umeko’s relatives attempt to reconstruct them: her youngest son Huali, who has emigrated to the USA, and her favourite granddaughter Julie. Huali is visiting his homeland for his mother’s eighty-second birthday with his own son, who is unfamiliar with his Taiwanese roots. Julie, on the other hand, is a self-confident and politically active doctoral student who is researching Taiwan’s modern history. But can any life story be reconstructed at all or can it only ever be imagined? How can we do justice to the complexity of the past and which – or whose – version of it will ultimately be considered the truth?

Stephan Thome’s new novel is a declaration of love to his adopted country Taiwan and its inhabitants’ tenacious will to survive. Plum Rain unfolds a moving historical panorama centred on a family tragedy. At the same time, the questions it raises are aimed at our own conflicted present: What creates belonging when personal and national identity are much less clear-cut than we think? How much do we know about those closest to us? What do we really know about ourselves?

»Plum Rain conveys events little known to European readers through the tumultuous fate of one family. Offering a panorama of 20th-century Taiwan, decentering an overly European perspective, these are, among other things, the concerns of this novel.« Le Grand Continent

»As the Chinese military is repeatedly invading Taiwan's airspace to provoke and reassert its hegemonic claim to the island, one finds in Plum Rain a kind of back story that could not be more topical.« Paul Jandl, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

»One would almost like to believe in the Taiwanese spirits, that’s how effortlessly Stephan Thome interweaves these stories without ever giving off the impression: too much, too forced. All the images of his Taiwanese kaleidoscope go to the heart in their own right and at the same time add a detail of East Asian history to the novel’s mosaic ... .« Insa Wilke, Süddeutsche Zeitung

»One cannot imagine a more politically topical novel than Plum Rain.« Andreas Platthaus, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»The author, who has already been shortlisted for the German Book Prize with three of his now five novels, paints a historical picture that conveys facts that are hardly familiar in this country. That in and of itself is an asset. Moreover, he reveals how wildly intertwined the roots of our origin can be. The question of where one’s home is preoccupies the younger generation in particular, as it has long since been positioned between London and Hong Kong, New York and Taipei. Thus, identity becomes a puzzle and Plum Rain an exemplary contemporary novel.« Martin Oehlen, Frankfurter Rundschau

»In his amazing novel Plum Rain, Stephan Thome depicts the history of Taiwan.« Cornelius Dieckmann, Der Tagesspiegel

»A gripping novel about people at war.« National Geographic History

»[World War II] not [viewed] from a European perspective for once. Stephan Thome ... has dedicated his book [Plum Rain] to Taiwan, which has a turbulent history and whose present is not uncomplicated.« Joachim Scholl, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

»Stephan Thome skilfully blends the historical and the fictional. He is a confident narrator who carefully structures his material.« Wolfgang Schneider, Deutschlandfunk

»Reading Stephan Thome is enjoyable and educating.« Katharina Borchardt, SWR

»... a gripping family epic spanning across four generations set against the backdrop of Taiwan’s eventful history. ... Very captivating and very instructive at the same time...« Barbara Geschwinde, WDR

»In light of the current dispute over Taiwan between China and the USA, Thome’s novel impressively demonstrates how forward-looking, even visionary, literature that is able to sharpen our view of the present casually by looking back into history can be.« Peter Henning, SR

»I have read all of Stephan Thome's previous books with great interest. One of the things that distinguishes him as a writer is the meticulous research that goes into the creation of his novels. Taiwan is a country with a complicated identity, an island that has been politically marginalized for a long time and now possesses only limited means of making its own cultural voice heard. Therefore, we especially hope to hear the thoughts of writers from other nations, with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Furthermore, Stephan Thome is not casually looking at Taiwan from the outside; having lived in different parts of the Chinese-speaking world and having studied our culture for many years, he is in a unique position to observe and to analyze the history of both China and Taiwan and to bring its political implications to light. For all these reasons I am very much looking forward to reading his new novel Plum Rain (the title obviously referring to Taiwan's rainy season when the plum trees are in full bloom). I am very curious about the thoughts and feelings regarding Taiwan he has expressed in his narrative.« Wu Ming-yi, author of The Man with the Compound Eyes and The Stolen Bicycle (longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2018)

 

»I have read the translations of Stephan Thome's works published in Taiwan several times. Reading Grenzgang the book with which he first made a name for himself, was an unforgettable experience that caused me to write a review. [...] When I recently learned that he had just finished such a novel, I could hardly contain my anticipation. Stephan Thome's writing is both graceful and full of wisdom and insight, the narrative of his novels has an unhurried flow, and yet there is something in it that makes one read on with bated breath it is with a sensitivity and a certain reserve that he brings his reader s in touch with life's inexpressible sorrows and contradictions. I can only hope that his new novel on Taiwan will be published without delay and will soon be translated. I shall then once again immerse myself in Stephan Thome's keen sense of observation and his delicate, careful prose, reading about a new Taiwanese experience coming from the heart of a German writer.« Chung Wenyin, one of Taiwan's most renowned novelists