A Pail of Oysters

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The most important English-language novel ever written about Taiwan.

Touching, tragic; a testimony to the stubbornly optimistic human spirit.

-The San Francisco Chronicle

Set against the political repression and poverty of the White Terror era in Taiwan, A Pail of Oysters tells the moving story of nineteen-year-old villager Li Liu and his quest to recover his family’s stolen kitchen god. Li Liu’s fate becomes entwined with that of American journalist Ralph Barton, who, in trying to report honestly about Kuomintang rule of the island, investigates the situation beyond the propaganda, learns of a massacre, and is drawn into the world of the Formosan underground.

First published in 1953, A Pail of Oysters was banned in Taiwan, and in the United States it was denounced by Chiang Kai-shek’s supporters: the powerful China Lobby. Anecdotal evidence suggests - and Sneider himself suspected - that his book was subject to suppression even in the United States by pro-KMT agents.

A Pail of Oysters is a landmark work from a time when novels were often seen as a moral force. But politics and historical importance aside, A Pail of Oysters is simply a good story well told.

This edition comes with a new introduction and a brief biography of the author. It is a must-read for anyone interested in Taiwan or the Cold War in Asia.