2024 TLA Golden Book Award

Hakkanese Chang and half-Amis Nakaw had a daughter, Pitai. Chang has only known life in his rugged highland home, where he runs an inn and buys and sells land. His very last land deal is with a professor seeking peace in the mountains. This journey views Chang’s life through the eyes of Nakaw, Pitai, and Watan, using multiple perspectives to spotlight life’s loves and crossroads as well as the conflicts and compromises inherent in self- identity. Together, their insights trace a path of repentance, forgiveness, and rebirth.
Chang writes of mountains like a mirror. They reflect multiplicity and delineate the contours of life, from the complicated feelings of love and hate to the deepest darkest desires and struggles, to ultimately reveal the insignificance and impotence of the human condition.