Taiwan-born writer and University of Hong Kong professor Lung Ying-tai's latest book, titled "Wide Rivers and Seas, Untold Stories of 1949, " proved to be a big draw at the Frankfurt Book Fair Oct. 14-18.

Though China has banned all Internet articles and discussions on the book - published by Taiwan's CommonWealth Magazine and Hong Kong's Cosmos Books in September - Chinese publishers and exhibitors at the book fair scrambled to gain the rights to publish her book in their country.

Neue Zuercher Zeitung, a major daily newspaper in Switzerland, said in a commentary Monday that China should be positively surprised by the "small but attractive" Taiwan pavilion at the book fair, because visitors could realize that "people will have a future only when there is a past, and emotional debts from suppressed memories must be repaid."

That was the essence of Lung's book about how the Chinese communists defeated Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang troops in a civil war before declaring themselves the new rulers of China on Oct. 1, 1949, the commentary said.

It said Lung's speech on the book - delivered at the book fair Oct. 15 and titled "Salute to the losers" - was a touching one.

"China could learn from Taiwan, a small island, and the loneliness of Chinese dissident writers that true greatness comes from the willingness to face defeat and failure, instead of physical or economic magnificence," it said.

The German weekly Der Spiegel recently published a report filed by reporter Juergen Kremb from Taipei that gave a detailed account of Lung's new book, including why she wrote it and what she felt and discovered during her writing.

Kremb described the book, which Lung said will hopefully make people in China and Taiwan abandon long-held suspicions and prejudices of each other, as unarguably the most important book that has been written in the Chinese-language world in decades.

He said Lung has not been spooked by the Chinese authorities, who have sheltered its people from being influenced by the book.

"Only when you see your enemy's wounds, will you be able to put your gun down, " he quoted Lung as saying.

Source: Central News Agency