Review of Portraits in White by Kaori Lai

*Portraits in White* by Kaori Lai, translated by Sylvia Li-chun Lin and Howard Goldblatt (2025). Published by Columbia University Press.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently fell into a spell of unemployment probably during the worst time to be unemployed, as it was very hard to find a job. I was applying to hundreds of jobs, getting interviews, but no offer was manifesting for me in the near future. So during this time, I had a lot of free time, and spent a good chunk of it chipping away at the blog.

During this time while unemployed, in-between applying to jobs, I’ve been spending a lot of time just catching up on my advance copy collection. I’ve been running this blog for about four years now, and I get direct emails from publishers along with advance copies through NetGalley. I typically prefer NetGalley though because I only have so much room in my bedroom, and I don’t like to waste physical copies of books if I don’t plan on keeping them.

Today’s blog post is dedicated to a book that’s coming out by Columbia University Press. I keep an eye out for their releases because previously I was given copies of their two translations of Fang Fang’s work. I enjoyed both of those books a lot when I was reading them, and I kept telling myself I was going to read more Chinese, Taiwanese, and Sino diaspora literature in the near future.

And then I saw Portraits in White was coming out, so I requested a copy after reading the synopsis. This seemed like quite the interesting read to me and I wanted to give it a shot. I ended up reading through all of it over the course over a few days, as I wanted to savor these novellas while I was taking my time.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction. Much love to the publisher and to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

Three novellas, focusing on one man and two women, set in Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War.

As I wrote above, and in the book’s synopsis as well, this is a series of novellas. I found the first one, which focuses on Ch’ing-chih, to be the most dense for me, but I think it was because I was less interested in the military and soldier side of things and more on his personal life beyond that.

I’m going to discuss each of the novellas in order, but for this book I seriously recommend not skipping the introduction if you’re not familiar with post Chinese Civil War history. I knew a little bit about the Kuomintang and what happened in Taiwan, so I didn’t go into this novel completely blind, but I thought the introduction added a lot of value to this novel.

You should usually read those introductions regardless of whether you think you’re an expert or not, but I’ve been shocked lately at the amount of people who told me they just straight up skip introductions if a book has one. Theoretically you did not finish the book if you didn’t read the introduction too.

Anyways, the first novella in this book is about Ch’ing-chih, who works as a schoolteacher. Like the other novella protagonists, we follow him throughout the years as Taiwan changes. He ends up working as a schoolteacher, but as I mentioned before, he gets involved with the military and is pressured to join it, which he resists. However, he does not really want to be there and actively tries to avoid getting involved with what’s happening behind the scenes in this period.

The second novella was my favorite, and it focuses on an old woman named Wen-hui. When Taiwan was under Japanese rule she worked in a Japanese household, but when it came time for independence, she stayed behind because she knew it would break her family’s heart. We follow her throughout the years as Taiwan rapidly changes around her, even when she ages and becomes ill in a country she no longer recognizes.

Our final story focuses on Ms. Casey, who isn’t a Han Chinese or from the mainland and faces the consequences because of that. During the novella’s period she, too, is an aged woman, but once upon a time she left behind Taiwan in order for bluer skies in Europe. Her story largely focuses on what it was like to be a part of the diaspora as someone who was of mainland descent, as well as the topic of aging and the world moving on without her as well.

We never actually directly see the violence and repression that was happening during these characters’ lives, but it definitely exists in the background. It bleeds into the characters’ motivations, whether it’s the military or working for the Japanese who were colonizing the island, and definitely shapes who they became throughout their lifetimes.

Overall Thoughts

As I mentioned before, I thought that the first novella dragged a bit, but once I got to the second and third ones, I was flying through the pages. I think I tend to connect to female stories more in general, so when I get those kinds of narratives, it’s easier for me to read. It also helps I have a focus on women’s fiction in East Asia academically, although within Korean literature.

Anyways, I still enjoyed the first novella—I just found it more difficult to get through. This collection was a fascinating one to me and very thought provoking because of how it depicted ordinary people living in Taiwan during these period. I read some literary fiction by diaspora authors, but this feels very different to me.

The writing is also very good throughout. The translation can be a bit clunky in certain sections for me, but overall I was impressed with the quality of what I was reading and how crisp the actual literature of this was. I would definitely read more from this author in the near future if there’s anything more of theirs translated.

All of this is to say I enjoyed reading this collection. It’s not my favorite in the world, but I appreciate it a lot for what it is and the working that is is doing. Pick it up at your local library or indie bookstore to give it a chance.

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