Green Island: A Novel

by Shawna Yang Ryan

A stunning story of love, betrayal, and family, set in a Taiwan undergoing enormous changes over the course of the twentieth century.

BEST BOOK AWARD IN FICTION BY THE ASSOCIATION FOR ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES

As an uprising rocks Taiwan, a young doctor in Taipei is taken from his newborn daughter by Chinese Nationalists, on charges of speaking out against the government. Although the doctor eventually returns to his family, his arrival is marked by alienation from his loved ones and paranoia among his community. 

Years later, this troubled past follows his youngest daughter to America, where, as a mother and a wife, she too is forced to decide between what is right and what might save her family—the same choice she witnessed her father make many years before. 

The story of a family and a nation grappling with the nuances of complicity and survival, Green Island raises the question: how far would you go for the ones you love?

Author

SHAWNA YANG RYAN is a former Fulbright scholar, the author of one previous novel, Water Ghosts, and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. Her short fiction has appeared in ZYZZYVA, The Asian American Literary Review, Kartika Review, and The Berkeley Fiction Review. She lives in Honolulu.