Taipei at Daybreak

An Asian American coming-of-age novel set amongst social protests of the early 2010s in East Asia.

In 2014, a veteran of Occupy Wall Street, QQ arrives in Taiwan and finally finds what he’s been looking for in the Sunflower Movement - a grassroots campaign of militant young people that looks set to overthrow the existing government.

Setting up an online newspaper, Daybreak, to represent the movement to the outside world, QQ also battles with self-destructive, violent impulses that drive him to the frontlines of protests. His nihilistic streak is fed by those around him, a host of other citizens, activists and journalists who travel together through the depths of the Taiwanese night, when the ghosts of its repressive history loom large.

Will QQ manage to outrun his own self destructive impulses on the streets, or will the emptiness he feels eventually consume him? Will he find the connection he needs, or will V, the mysterious, destructive partner who haunts his dreams, claim him as her own? Will QQ be able to confront and survive his own family’s complicity in the era of the White Terror?

A unique blend or reportage, memoir and meditation on the unseen forces, personal and political, that propel people to the very edge, Taipei at Daybreak is a coming-of-age novel like no other, following tumultuous conflict both outside and in, and told through a spare style with flashes of dark poetry.

Brian Hioe (丘琦欣) is a Taiwanese American writer, translator, activist, and DJ based out of Taipei. In 2014, he was one of the founders of New Bloom Magazine (破土), an online magazine covering activism and youth politics in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific that was founded after the Sunflower Movement, which he was a participant in as a student activist. His writing has been published in The Guardian, The Nation, Dissent, Art Forum, and other publications, and media appearances range from Democracy Now to Netflix’s Midnight Asia.