The Spanish in Taiwan

I’ve posted a lot on this blog about various colonial aspects of the French, British, Japanese and Spanish in Taiwan (just use the search box to see any of them) so I’m happy to see that Hong Kong University Press has published José Eugenio Borao Mateo’s The Spanish Experience in Taiwan, 1626-1642: The Baroque Ending of a Renaissance Endeavour. Mateo is professor of Spanish language and culture at the Department of Foreign Languages at National Taiwan University.

The book was first published in Chinese and won The Best Humanities Book of the Year at the Golden Tripod Awards for Publications (2009) in Taiwan. I have no idea if that is prestigious or not! Anyway, a history of the Spanish in Taiwan during the 17th century is long overdue so I look forward to reading this one. Let’s hope the all too common ‘look at me, I’m an academic’ style of heavy theorising and over analysis is not too bad.