Born in 1957, Syaman Rapongan is a writer from the indigenous Tao tribe of Taiwan’s Orchid Island, one of the country’s remotest locations. After spending over ten years studying and working in Taipei, he returned in 1989 to his home and the sea he loved so much to rediscover his identity. The 1980s in Taiwan marked the start of public discussions on socioeconomic and political concerns, including aboriginal rights, and his mother challenged him to prove himself a man in the Tao sense by going diving and spear-fishing. Thus reconnected to his roots, he turned to writing about the world he had grown up in, expressing himself in a natural and simple style suggestive of his native Tao tongue. His books draw on materials from legends narrated by the tribal elders of his parents’ generation. Syaman Rapongan’s published works include Black Wings, Memory of the Ocean Waves, The Face of a Sea Voyager, and Old Ama Divers.