Fiction
The Piano Tuner
by Kuo Chiang-Sheng(Johnny Kuo)
Description
“In the beginning, we were souls without bodies.”
When God planned to give us souls a physical shape, souls lost freedom forever.
Our protagonist is a piano tuner with an extraordinary musical gift. Not only does he possess a mastery over musicality and pitch, he is also able to distinguish the distinct characteristics of each piano. A chance encounter in his teen derails the dreams of becoming a professional pianist, leaving him stuck in time against the memories of what has been lost – he is now over forty, unkept, and lacks achievement of any kind.
A grieving businessman of over sixty meets the tuner when he is left behind a piano by his wife. The pair become business partners with the plan of dealing second-hand pianos – they embark on a journey to locate a piano in New York.
As the journey unfolds, the tuner comes to understand the twists and turns of a love story that is hidden out of sight under the elegant sound of the piano: the love of an older man and his young wife – their love tested against the trials and tribulations of life. He learns that there is a universality to the secrets hidden behind each narrative of love, whether it is between teachers and students, husband and wife, and even in friendship.
Their final destination is an old piano cemetery, a whole field of bare, stripped, and abandoned piano remains. This evokes an emotional response from the tuner, as he recognizes it as a dark parallel to the final ruins of emotions.
THE PIANO TUNER utilizes musical stories from history, such as Rachmaninoff, Schubert, Richter, and Gould to represent the characters’ thoughts in the story. Kuo Chiang-Sheng’s extensive research is evident: from Richter, the second-hand piano distribution center in Manhattan, to the piano tuner profession, etc. all are set against the sound and backdrop of the everchanging, contemporary media age.
Everyone has an innate program for resonance. Some find it in musical instruments, some in singing, while some are more fortunate to find a vibration amid the world, awakening resonance between the past, present, and future. The novel tells a story of sound and emotion, and the medium of communication between the two is the piano. A book filled with sorrow and temperance, Kuo Chiang-Sheng’s first foray into musical fiction leaves one breathless with praise.
More Information
Rights Information
Rights sold:
China (Imaginist)
France (Editions Picquier)
Vietnam (Tazano Company)
Thailand (Biblio Co., Ltd)
US (offering)
To inquire the foreign rights, please contact: whsu@nurnberg.com.tw
Marketing Information
★2020 Taiwan Literature Golden Award
★2020 Openbook Book of the Year Award
★2020 Kingstone Bookstore's Top 10 Influential Books of the Year
★2020 Books.com.tw Book of the Year and one of Top 100 Bestseller
★2021 First Prize, Novel Award for Taipei International Book Fair
★2021 United Daily Literature Award
★2021 Selected by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture as a “Books from Taiwan”
★David Der-wei Wang praised: “THE PIANO TUNER is Kuo Chiang-Sheng’s best work and one of the best Taiwanese novels in recent years.”
Author Biography
Kuo Chiang-Sheng (Johnny Kuo) is a graduate from the Department of Foreign Languages at National Taiwan University with a PhD in Theatre from New York University. After return to Taiwan, he first taught at National Dong Hwa University and assisted in establishing the Institute of English Literature. He is currently a professor in the Department of Language and Creative Writing at the National Taipei University.
Kuo’s play, Men and Women, won the first prize of the Taiwan Times Literature Award. The 2018 edition of his novel, THE HOMELESS MAN, was awarded the Golden Tripod Award. Both THE SON OF THE NIGHT and THE CHRONICLES were nominated for the Taipei International Book Fair Award. His short story, “The Sinner,” won the 2017 Novel of the Year, awarded by Nine Songs. His collection of essays, “Why Not Seriously Sorrow” won the Open Book Award, the Golden Tripod Award, and the Taiwan Literary Classics Award. His essay collection, “The Far Place I Will Go,” won the Jinshitang Annual Top Ten Most Influential Book Award.
In Kuo’s work, he traverses between different fields in literature and culture while maintaining his textual aesthetics and creative perspectives, never shying away from the essentials of the human condition, exploring the unrestrained conflicts between passion and melancholy. In addition to novels and plays, his other works include the essay collection, “It’s Too Late to Be Beautiful,” “2003/ Kuo Chiang-Sheng,” a diary collection, and a compilation of literary criticism titled, “If Literature is Simple, Then We Don’t Have to Work So Hard,” “Literary Citizen,” “Wandering in Literature,” etc. His latest work, “The Destined Life” is a collection of essays published in 2021.
Ailbert Cultural Company Limited
Ailbert Cultural Company Limited was established in 2012 with the original purpose of promoting the works of Taiwanese writers to Mainland China, and then expanding the translation rights territory to Southeast Asia such as Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, as well as the UK, US and European markets. Since 2018, we started to authorize TV/film rights across the world on behalf of our representative authors. 安伯文化事業有限公司成立於2012年，最初宗旨是將台灣作家的著作推向中國大陸，隨後拓展版權版圖至泰國、越南、印尼等東南亞地區，以及英美歐書市。我們授權代理的知名台灣導演和藝人作家包括：吳念真導演（《這些年，那些事》，中簡版在中國暢銷逾50萬冊）、小S（《國際廚娘的終極導師》）、陳昇（《9999滴眼淚》、《鹹魚的滋味》等共7本書）、曲家瑞（《誰說我沒有影響力》等共3本書）、黃子佼（《我還在》）、鄭華娟（《氣質卡小狗學堂》）；以及台灣年度暢銷作家：肆一（《可不可以，你也剛好喜歡我？》等共4本書）、Peter Su（《夢想這條路踏上了，跪著也要走完》等共3本書；同時代理著作文學小說家，包括囊括多座文學獎項的張貴興（《野豬渡河》和《沙龍祖母》等3本小說）、香港知名小說家董啟章（《愛妻》和《命子》等2本小說）；自2018年為旗下代理作家授權影視版權，包括董啟章的《體育時期》授權全球電影版權等。
View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher Ecus Publishing
- Publication Date April 2020
- Orginal LanguageChinese complex
- ISBN/Identifier 9789863597797
- Publication Country or regionTaiwan
- FormatPaperback
- Pages224
- ReadershipGeneral
- Publish StatusPublished
- Original Language Title尋琴者
- Original Language Authors郭強生
- Copyright Year2020
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