* 2025 Taiwan Literature Award
No one in the 1930s had trekked more of Taiwan’s alpine wilderness or conquered more of its peaks than Kano Tadao. This remarkable young Japanese naturalist made the most of his regrettably short career studying firsthand this island’s topography, natural environment, and indigenous inhabitants.
Well-respected naturalist author and travel show host Liu Ka-Shiang, looking fully the part of an erudite academic able and eager to set off with a well-packed rucksack on a multi-day wilderness hike at the drop of a hat, credits Kano Tadao as being the source of his passion for the outdoors and professional aspirations. Importantly, Liu’s literary pursuits have helped bring him closer in both mind and spirit to his professed mentor. Liu has thoroughly studied Kano’s life and works, researched the Japan and Taiwan of Kano’s time, and used Kano’s detailed notes and maps to retrace his footsteps and compare and contrast Taiwan’s interior of today with that of a century ago. Learning from Kano Tadao has greatly deepened Liu’s own understanding of Taiwan.
Kano Tadao, born in Tokyo in 1906, is an outdoorsy kid from a very young age. While at high school in Taihoku (Taipei), he spends most of his time in the island’s rugged interior collecting insects, developing serious interests in both biogeography and anthropology. Despite his poor classroom attendance, his prolific field observations and writings earn him the headmaster’s recommendation to attend Tokyo Imperial University. Between his first experiences in Taiwan in the mid-to-late 1920s and his disappearance on Borneo in 1945, Kano publishes dozens of books on his mountain treks, wildlife research, and indigenous tribe studies as well as over 150 academic papers.
Focused primarily on Kano as a young adult, this book fleshes out Kano’s experiences as a student and takes occasional asides to introduce notable influencers on his life. Although the narrative wraps up in 1933 on one of his field surveys on the island, the volume of anthropological and natural science information included in this work far exceeds that provided in most biographies. A Blazing Star is the most-detailed examination of the life and importance of Kano Tadao published to date.