The Stolen Bicycle Wu Mingyi Darryl Sterk by Wu Ming-yi, Darryl Sterk 9781925410792, 192541079X instant download after payment.

Wu Ming-Yi’s novel about bicycles, elephants and war - which is also a startlingly intimate meditation on memory, family and home. Translated by Darryl Sterk.

A search for his missing father’s stolen bicycle takes author Cheng on an epic quest deep into the secret world of antique bicycle collectors. On the journey, he finds himself caught up in the strangely intertwined stories of Lin Wang, the oldest elephant who ever lived, the soldiers who fought in the jungles of South-East Asia during World War Two and the secret worlds of the butterfly handicraft makers.

"The novel, inspired by his love for bicycles and Taiwanese history, brings readers back to a simpler time when life moved more slowly and people spent more time face-to-face with friends and neighbours. Riding a bike allowed people to appreciate and digest the details of the world around them."  -  Taipei Times

"Unusual insights and vividly observed detail abound in this witty and sensitive story."  -  Toowoomba Chronicle

Wu Ming-Yi was born in Taipei, Taiwan, in June 1971  He has won the China Times Open Book Award six times. He is an associate professor at National Dong Hwa University in Hualian, Taiwan and an expert in the history of Taiwanese environmental literature. He was first recognized for two book-length works of literary essays about butterflies, Butterfly Way (2000) and Beguiled by Butterflies (2003), before publishing his first novel, Routes of Slumber, in 2007. In 2013, The Man with the Compound Eyes, a metafictional ecological disaster novel, was translated into English by Darryl Sterk and published by Harvill Secker to widespread acclaim.