Severe controls on information and education imposed by the Nationalist government after the Second World War effectively disassociated postwar Taiwan from its fifty-year history as a colony of Japan – a period of both rapid modernization and emerging industrial and artistic accomplishment. This lost era has only recently returned into the public consciousness and is only now being incorporated into public education curricula. Thus, for most Taiwanese, popular literature, easy to read and digest, is essential to bringing us all up to speed on Taiwan’s prewar, colonial heritage. Before the Dawn takes an engagingly interesting narrative approach to introducing the stories of several prominent local artists working in colonial-era Taiwan. Accompanied by lively illustrations, this important work sheds evocative “new” light on Taiwan’s colonial art world.