《TAIPEI TIMES》 Taiwan to host international comic festival

Minister of Culture Li Yuan, right, looks at exhibits displayed at the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration in London on Wednesday. Photo: CNA

PANEL BY PANEL: Comic critic and historian Paul Gravett, a frequent visitor to Taiwan, said that the event aims to present comics as a major art form

/ Staff writer, with CNA, LONDON

Minister of Culture Li Yuan （李遠） on Wednesday wrapped up his visit to the UK by announcing plans for the launch next year of the Taiwan International Comics Festival, which he said would be curated by a British comics historian.

Li unveiled the comics festival plan during a visit to the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration in London, the UK’s first purpose-built, dedicated illustration space and the largest of its kind in the world.

The Ministry of Culture in 2017 overhauled its policy on comics, introducing a subsidy program, and later expanded its efforts with grants for longer-form works, translation initiatives, cross-sector collaborations and the establishment of the National Taiwan Museum of Comics in Taichung, he said.

With next year marking a decade of those efforts, the ministry would launch the inaugural Taiwan International Comics Festival, with British comics historian and critic Paul Gravett as the curator, Li said.

Gravett said he hoped the event would demonstrate that “Taiwanese comics are part of the world’s comics.”

The festival, to be held at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung, aims to present comics as a major art form with greater ambition and a broader vision, said Gravett, a frequent visitor to Taiwan.

Later on Wednesday, Li met with Booker Prize Foundation chief executive Gaby Wood, who praised the novel Taiwan Travelogue （臺灣漫遊錄） by Yang Shuang-zi （楊?子）, which won this year’s International Booker Prize.

Translated by Lin King （金翎）, the novel is beautiful, complex and sweet, Wood said, adding that its portrayal of the relationship between two women and its rich descriptions of food deepen its political and cultural themes.

During the meeting, Wood presented Li with a double-exposure black-and-white photograph of Yang and Lin that she had taken with a 1950s camera during this year’s Hay Festival in Wales, saying the image symbolized the close collaboration between the author and translator.

Wood also discussed the inaugural Children’s Booker Prize, which she said was created partly in response to concerns about declining reading among children. It is to be awarded in February next year.

Young readers would serve on the panel of judges to help choose the winning title, she said.