Renowned Taiwanese queer writer and researcher Chi Ta-Wei will join us in London for a conversation about his 1995 queer sci-fi novel The Membranes. Chi will reflect on his journey over the past decades, as he has sought to advance popular and academic understandings of Taiwanese LGBTQ+ literary history. Hosted by So Mayer.
It is the late twenty-first century, and Momo is the most celebrated dermal care technician in all of T City. Humanity has migrated to domes at the bottom of the sea to escape devastating climate change. The world is dominated by powerful media conglomerates and runs on exploited cyborg labor. Momo prefers to keep to herself, and anyway she’s too busy for other relationships: her clients include some of the city’s best-known media personalities. But after meeting her estranged mother, she begins to explore her true identity, a journey that leads to questioning the bounds of gender, memory, self, and reality.
Hailed as a visionary piece of writing since published in 1995, The Membranes is a classic of queer speculative fiction in the Sinophone world. Chi Ta-wei weaves dystopian tropes—heirloom animals, radiation-proof combat drones, sinister surveillance technologies—into a sensitive portrait of one young woman’s quest for self-understanding. Predicting everything from fitness tracking to social media saturation, this visionary and sublime novel stands out for its queer and trans themes.
About Chi Ta-wei
Chi Ta-wei is a renowned writer and scholar from Taiwan. Chi’s scholarly work focuses on LGBTQ+ studies, disability studies, and Sinophone literary history, while his award-winning creative writing ranges from science fiction to queer short stories. He is an associate professor of Taiwanese literature at the National Chengchi University.
About So Mayer
So Mayer is the author of Truth & Dare (Cipher Press, 2023), a collection of queer non-binary speculative (non) fiction and of A Nazi Word for a Nazi Thing (Peninsula Press, 2020), an essay on queer art against fascism. They’re a member of queer feminist film curation collective Club Des Femmes.
This event is part of Queer East Festival 2025, a cross-disciplinary festival that showcases boundary-pushing LGBTQ+ cinema, live arts, and moving image work from East and Southeast Asia and its diaspora communities. Its sixth edition runs from 23 April to 18 May 2025 in venues across London, exploring notions of what it means to be queer and Asian today.