When colonial exploitation breaks the limit of endurance, a spirit medium steps forward to lead a resistance movement that quickly snowballs into Taiwan’s largest anti-colonial uprising. The dual narrative in this fantasy-tinged novel plumbs the hopes and struggles of all who fight for liberation.

Modest Xilai Temple in Tainan City owns an outsized place in the history books, for it was from here in 1915 that Xilai’s spirit medium Û Tshing-Hong launched an anti-colonial uprising that left over 10,000 dead or wounded and 2,000 executed. While many see superstitious beliefs driving the rebels, author Wu Hsin-Han suggests a more fantastical force might have been at work.

In the 1970s, the god of Xilai Temple tells Tsìng-Hiông his paternal grandfather is now a god in the immortal realm. Perplexed, he is told his grandfather was once the temple’s spirit-medium facilitator and one of the few survivors of the “Xilai Temple Incident”. The what incident? With this historical event having long faded from living memory, the temple faithful settle in to learn the full story firsthand from the god through his medium.

In 1912, seriously ill labor camp inmate Û Tshing-Hong is miraculously healed by an old man who tells him his destiny is to “walk with the gods”. Û subsequently fulfills his promise to the old man to serve as Xilai Temple’s spirit medium. Together with a prominent local businessman, Û grows the temple faithful. However, the ulterior motive is to prepare for an uprising against Taiwan’s colonial oppressors timed to take advantage of a series of disastrous setbacks for the Japanese predicted by the temple god.

In Tainan Requiem, author Wu Hsin-Han not only interweaves his unique spiritual perspective with real-world history but also complements the main colonial era narrative with a sub-narrative set during Taiwan’s postwar Martial Law era. Unfolding in two distinct historical periods, the dual narratives highlight that autocratic governments of all stripes share much in common and that the subjects of such rule all yearn to be happy and free.