In the 1980s, thirty years after the end of the Second World War, the generation born in the wake of the war became parents themselves. Taiwan was increasingly prosperous, but unrest was on the rise as numerous social movements shook the foundations of an authoritarian regime. Many in a generation on the threshold of adolescence were coming to accept a new understanding of their country. Fang Hui-Chen’s memoir of this era contains accurate social observation and objective self-reflection. Before Dawn is both a retrospective of one girl’s adolescence and a front-row view on Taiwanese society in the period just before and after the end of martial law.