Taigael: Stories from Taiwanese & Gaelic

In a Taiwanese temple, a saliva goddess vanishes without trace. A Hogmanay party is gate-crashed by the Free Church. In Taipei, an elderly prophet foretells a subway attack. On the way home from a day in court, a woman finds a sheep tangled in the brambles.

Four stories, four writers, four languages: Gaelic, Taiwanese, Mandarin & English. Tâigael is a first-of-its-kind collaborative writing and translation project, bringing together writers from Scotland and Taiwan, to explore language, translation and culture. These four stories by Elissa Hunter-Dorans (Scotland), Kiú-kiong 玖芎 (Taiwan), Lisa MacDonald (Scotland) and Naomi Sím (Taiwan) cross between languages and cultures to speak of things unspoken, and to find new and surprising connections. Taiwanese (Tâi-gí) and Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) are languages that have been historically marginalised and suppressed.

Taigael presents two newly commissioned short stories in Gaelic, and two in Taiwanese, or Tâi-gí (in both 漢字 and Pe̍h-ōe-jī). And then it translates these stories between the two languages, via Mandarin (Traditional) and English. Each story is published in all four languages, to allow the largest possible audience.

"Four thoughtful and thought-provoking stories in conversation across languages and cultures - how exciting, and how necessary! This marvellous anthology, full of grace and wit, shows how writers and indeed whole literatures thrive when in contact with other voices." — Garry MacKenzie, author of Scotland: a Literary Guide for Travellers and Ben Dorain: a conversation with a mountain