The Traveler

Abstract

Siu Kam Wen (b. 1951, Guandong Province, China; lives in Hawaii). One of Peru's most acclaimed young writers, Siu has published the short-story collections El tramo final (1985); La primera espada del imperio (1988); and Cuentos completos (2004). He is also the author of Deconstructing Art (2004), a collection of essays on art. Siu's writing addresses the Chinese presence in the Hispanic world as well as distinctly Chinese subjects such as sword-fighting. His work provides a glimpse into the Chinese community in Peru and introduces an Asian perspective into Latin American literature as a whole. Jenny Lin-Martínez's translation of ‘‘El viajero,’’ presented here, was supported in part by a grant from The City University of New York PSCCUNY Research Award Program.

Notes

¹The Emperor of Chou was actually a woman—Lady Wu Tse-Tien. Born in the year 625, she was, in succession, maiden of the Emperor Tai-Tsung, the founder of the Tang dynasty; “lady-in-waiting” of the Emperor Kao-Tsung; and, finally, his wife. From 684 to 689, she was the Regent Empress. In 690, after incarcerating her own two sons and purging the rest of the princes, she abolished the Tang dynasty and declared herself Emperor (ti instead of hou, or “Empress”) of a new dynasty, which she named Chou. In 697, at 72, she gathered a harem of young men to pleasure her, known as the Institute of the Crane. Lady Wu died in 705. The Tang dynasty was reestablished shortly before her death.

²The art of love-making.