TWO TREES MAKE A FOREST

A family memoir that incorporates elements of environmental and colonial history and celebrates the subtleties of language.

Lee, a Berlin-based British Canadian Taiwanese author, began her journey and historical excavation after discovering her grandfather’s attempts at an autobiography, “just a series of fragments, circled and repeated—pieces of his life told to no one before, pressed to paper, and perhaps forgotten by him soon after writing.” The author grew up in Canada with her mother and grandparents, all of whom had relocated there from Taiwan. After she found her grandfather’s letters, written when the “Chinese Communist Party was formed,” Lee became increasingly drawn to the island that she had visited as a baby but never considered a significant part of her identity. This elegiac book, which smoothly incorporates historical and travel threads, was born from the desire to embrace her heritage. With a doctorate in environmental history and an impressive grasp of botany and geology, Lee takes readers on a fascinating tour of the island and its past. Settled by the Dutch and Spanish, and then Chinese, in the 17th century, it was transferred to Japan in 1895 following the First Sino-Japanese War, and then back to China after World Wari II. Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist Party retreated there in 1949, and Lee's grandparents arrived separately shortly thereafter. On the author’s engrossing tour, we are introduced to a landscape that is filled with colorful flora and fauna but is also subject to earthquakes, mudslides, and typhoons, all of which Lee describes in often poetic language—e.g., “the otherworld of the earthquake lake is a blackened shroud, but the quarter-mooned sky stretches light forever.” Chronicling her adventures in the mountains and along the shores, she comments insightfully on contemporary issues of politics, prejudice, and pollution as well as her efforts to master the language and bond with long-lost relatives.

A beautiful and personal view of an island—and an author—shaped by environment and history.