To the East of the East

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD in TRANSLATED LITERATURE

Min-Hui's travels from Taiwan to Beijing in search of her vanished husband in this multi-layered meditation on marriage and freedom from Taiwan's most sophisticated contemporary voice.

While chasing business opportunities in China, Min-Hui's husband disappears without a trace, forcing her to uproot her quiet life as a writer in Taiwan and travel to Beijing, where the chaos of the city leaves her reeling. Does the Chinese government truly have her best interests at heart, and how hard are the authorities looking for her missing husband?

Marooned in the ancient capital, Min-Hui encounters the enigmatic Shangjun, a self-proclaimed human rights activist who seeks refuge in her hotel room. As their relationship blooms, Min-Hui allows him to read her novel in progress: a young Qing emperor confined within the Forbidden City becomes fascinated by pirate merchant Zheng Zhilong's tales of the Taiwanese seas. All the while, Min-Hui contemplates the discord in the marriage she is desperate to save.
Exploring the universal longing for freedom with her signature multi-layered narrative, Ping Lu interweaves Min-Hui's search for her husband and her Beijing love affair with the historical backstory of her novel and unsent letters from her vanished husband.

To the East of the East offers a profound meditation on liberation, destiny and the contingencies of national histories by one of Taiwan's most sophisticated contemporary voices.

Ping Lu is the pen name of Taiwanese writer Lu Ping. Ping Lu writes on a wide range of topics, including society, culture, gender, politics, history and human rights. She won Taiwan's National Award for the Arts in 2021, and has previously also won the 2021 Taiwan Literature Award for 間隙 (The Gaps), the 2018 Golden Tripod Prize for 袒露的心 (Heart Mandala), and the 2016 Wu San-lien Literary Award. Her short story collections and novels, including Love and Revolution, 何日君再來 (When Will My Love Return) and 黑水 (The River Darkens) have been translated into English, French, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Czech and many other languages. To the East of the East is her most recent work to be translated into English.

Jeremy Tiang won the Singapore Literature Prize for his novel State of Emergency, and was shortlisted for the same prize for his short story collection It Never Rains on National Day (forthcoming from World Editions). He has translated over thirty books from Chinese, including Zhang Yueran's Cocoon for World Editions, which won the Singapore Literature Prize. He also writes and translates plays--most recently Salesman之死, which was staged at New York's Connelly Theater, and received an Obie Award. Originally from Singapore, he now lives in New York City.