Li Lung-Chieh has been wowing readers (and even judges) of his illustrated stories since he was fifteen years old. His most popular recent work, Ichthyophobia, won him an International Comic Award in Japan and a Golden Comic Award in Taiwan in 2016. He has represented Taiwan twice at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. Koxinga Z By the late seventeenth century, the East India Company had reached a monopolizing hand around half the globe, and left bloody fingerprints wherever it met resistance. Yet in 1661, a
force comes south to the paradise island of Formosa (the Dutch name for Taiwan) that faces the Dutch imperialists, and drives them away forever.
Manga artist Li Lung-Chieh recreates the character of Frederick Coyett, last Dutch governor of Taiwan, who attempted to create a multi-ethnic community in Taiwan while maintaining control over the island’s resources, yet would live to watch twenty-five thousand Chinese troops destroy his forces and drive him off the island. Facing Coyett from across battle lines is Koxinga, the young Ming loyalist and son of a pirate who would eventually found his own kingdom on Taiwan. Tempers rise and blood is spilled as a war for resources deepens into a struggle for self-determination and freedom from oppression. Li Lung-Chieh’s aggressive illustrations create the perfect energy for telling a story so charged with ferocious energy.
