{"id":10936,"date":"2021-12-05T18:59:45","date_gmt":"2021-12-05T18:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/?p=10936"},"modified":"2025-11-24T16:02:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T16:02:32","slug":"review-the-membranes-by-chi-ta-wei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/?p=10936","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Membranes by Chi Ta-wei"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile\" style=\"grid-template-columns:15% auto\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"323\" height=\"499\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/chi.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10238 size-full\"\/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color\" style=\"font-size:18px\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>I <a style=\"color: #333333;\" href=\"http:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/non-fiction\/the-membranes-by-chi-ta-wei-translated-by-ari-larissa-heinrich\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">reviewed<\/span><\/a> Taiwanese author Chi Ta-wei&#8217;s novella <em>The Membranes<\/em>, translated by Ari Larissa Heinrich, for <em>Strange Horizons<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color\" style=\"font-size:18px\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Here&#8217;s an excerpt from the review:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color\" style=\"font-size:18px\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Novellas are a famously difficult species: neither short stories nor novels, they often can\u2019t find a home, since publishers are hesitant to invest time and money in them. Nonetheless, here we have Taiwanese author Chi Ta-wei\u2019s <em>The Membranes:<\/em> \u201ca perfect novella,\u201d by which I mean that it does exactly, and only, what it needs to do in the exact amount of space it needs to do it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color\" style=\"font-size:18px\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Read the entire review <a style=\"color: #333333;\" href=\"http:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/non-fiction\/the-membranes-by-chi-ta-wei-translated-by-ari-larissa-heinrich\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">here<\/span><\/a>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">&nbsp; <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[1237,1236,131,1095],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10936"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15777,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10936\/revisions\/15777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}