My Enemy’s Cherry Tree is a book that grabs your attention from the first pages and confuses at the same time. The story begins in a tiny cafe away from everything – it’s just us and the narrator, until an elderly gentleman, local rich man and philanthropist Luo Yiming sits at the table closest to the exit.
The following chapters are an attempt to explain how the narrator miraculously ended up in such a place. And what Luo has to do with the disappearance of his wife, Quizi.
My Enemy’s Cherry Tree is a story about loss, about privilege, about lack of understanding. And about how we show that we love someone and that sometimes, even despite the enormity of these emotions, it is not enough. Wang reminds us that it’s hard to get to know someone for real, that we often confuse someone’s vision with who he really is. All this in a fantastic translation by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin.
The story of the love between narrator and Quizi seems even more interesting in the context of the author himself. He heard an ultimatum from his future father-in-law: either his daughter’s hand or a writer’s career. He chose love… and came back with a book twenty-five years after the break to win the whole range of prestigious awards and for many months not descended Taiwan bestseller lists.
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