Where Every Ghost Has a Name: A Book Talk with Author Kim Liao

The Global Asian Studies Program encourages the Northeastern community to explore the complex ways Asia, Asia America, and the Asia diaspora have shaped our world past and present.

The program is incredibly excited to host a special event with author Kim Liao to discuss her most recent book, Where Every Ghost Has a Name A Memoir of Taiwanese Independence.

In 2010, Kim Liao traveled to Taiwan to learn the truth about her family. After WWII, her grandfather Thomas Liao became the leader of the Taiwanese independence movement, his land was seized, his relatives were arrested, and his nephew was sentenced to death. With their lives at stake, Thomas’s wife Anna brought their four children to America to start a new life—never speaking a word about Thomas again.

When Kim arrived in Taiwan six decades later, she was shocked to learn that the KMT government had erased much of the story of Taiwanese independence from the official historical record. For years, Taiwanese citizens were kept in the dark about the violence that transpired during four decades of martial law, with the silenced voices of the White Terror Period mirroring the silencing of the Liao family’s story.

Despite this suppression, she learned that former independence leaders had preserved this history in their memories and personal archives. With their help, Kim discovered two stories: her family's story of love and loss, and Taiwan’s fight for freedom.

Kim Liao’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, The Rumpus, McSweeney’s, The Millions, Salon, Fourth River, Hippocampus, and others. A former Taiwan Fulbright Creative Research Scholar, her work has received support from the Vermont Studio Center, the Jentel Foundation, the Hambidge Center, the Anderson Center, and the Ragdale Foundation. She lives with her family near New York City and teaches writing to students of all ages.

Host or Publisher Northeastern University Asian Studies Program