This emotionally gripping work of historical fiction tells the story of an apprentice taxidermist who comes to believe his brother, killed in battle in Southeast Asia, has magically returned home as an orangutan brought back to Taiwan by returning soldiers.

Takayama Kazukimi, the Taihoku Zoo’s chief taxidermist, lives in a humble home close to his work together with his two sons Teruo, the oldest, and Masao, the youngest. Although ethnically indigenous, Kazukimi is an assimilated citizen of the Japanese Empire with little knowledge of his “aboriginal” heritage, having lost his home and family at a young age, grown up under Japanese tutelage, and trained as a taxidermist under an experienced Japanese master. Both sons grow up learning the taxidermy arts by their father’s side but, despite his initial inelegance, it is Masao alone who ultimately chooses to follow in his father’s footsteps.

Although elder brother Teruo excels in both academics and sports, his strikingly “aboriginal” features make him a target of colonial prejudice and derision. Against his family’s wishes, he joins the colonial Takasago Volunteer Corps hoping through heroism in battle to extirpate his family’s ethnic “shame” and finally make them truly Japanese. Too little to understand his older brother’s motivations, Masao simply prays for his safe return home. Instead, what arrives at their doorstep is the news of Teruo’s untimely death in war.

Masao’s stubborn refusal to accept his brother could truly be gone is sharpened when he sees Taihoku Zoo’s newest addition – an orangutan brought back by the Japanese Army from the jungles of Southeast Asia. Feeling a strange closeness and finding the orangutan able to “write” him messages using blades of grass arranged on the ground, Masao confidently accepts him as his returned brother. But how can Masao make sure he won’t lose his older brother again?

This work won a 2023 Taiwan Historical Novel Award for Unpublished Fiction. The author’s smooth-flowing narrative style makes immersion into the story’s somewhat obscure historical framework easy for readers. Young Masao’s emotions and thoughts throughout, while fantastical, are endearingly sincere, reflecting the true power of both love and loss.