The Formosa Exchange

by Huang Chong-kai, Jeremy Tiang (Translator)

On the 20th of May, 2024, one day after the inauguration of Taiwan’s first Indigenous President, the entire population of the island wakes up to discover they have suddenly switched places with the residents of Cuba. Two multi-ethnic island communities with colonial histories suddenly find themselves facing baffling new questions, as well as the greedy weight of a new “mainland” hegemon.

Huang Chong-Kai’s astonishing work of speculative realism opens new conversations on race, marginality, and the (re)telling of history by weaving multiple voices and genres into a single work. We experience the miraculous switch through the eyes of Taiwan’s first Indigenous president, a Cuban painter, a Han Taiwanese who wants to be Indigenous, and a former inmate of Guantanamo Bay. The author transforms these stories into a narrative ecosystem by presenting them through a variety of different media styles, including book reviews, podcast transcripts, and interviews.

Genres: Literature

350 pages, Paperback

Published September 18, 2026

Reviews

[emily]

‘—Lu Xun’s analogy of waking up in a sealed iron house, unable to rouse—but scream silently—Who was he? What was his history? What was he thinking? How did he feel about the—years of his life? All those—were sealed in his language and in his heart—The last thing I want to say is: no matter how others see you, it’s important that you’re always thinking about who you are. There may not be an immediate answer, but keep thinking about it. This might be frustrating at times, but you’ll eventually find out.’

more thoughts to come later. Probably would not have read it if not for Jeremy Tiang, but glad to have done so anyway. Not sure I ‘understood’ enough of it, but what is most certain to me is that it reminds me sometimes the work/text ‘reveals’ more about the readers reading the book (than anything else that seems more immediate?)? Slightly but surely reminds me of the ‘reactions’ (from some other readers) toward Tash Aw’s The Harmony Silk Factory; (the somewhat/twistedly ‘unreliable’ (or rather playful with irony and sarcasm)) narrators paired with (some) readers who are ignorant/not adequately familiar with the histories of the countries and conflicts mentioned in the text (understandably all of that made it a ‘difficult’ read for some, but when/once you ‘get’ it, it’s a whole different experience altogether).

‘Take a moment to rethink the relationship between people and their environment, their buildings, and even their country. Take Havana—there are several allotments dotted through the city, each shared by several districts—fruits and veg are grown organically—Sure, it takes some effort, but it everyone pitches in, it’s no bad thing to have a steady supply of fresh vegetables—Our ancestors took care of this land, and we ought to treat it well. Can human beings truly own land? You draw a map, stick a flag in it, and just like that it’s yours? What arrogance. We’re on this earth for less than a hundred years, but the land has been here for hundreds of millenia—as well as the ancestral spirits and deities who inhabited it at different times. We must keep some land for these gods so that they can form a connection with the living. This may sound supernatural, maybe mystical, but—The doorway to a new era now stands wide open.’

‘Over hundreds of years, we’ve seen our customs, lifestyles, cultures, beliefs—languages steadily eroded away—we’re no longer connected to the natural world through hunting, farming, or weaving. Our identities, cultures, and languages have been severed from us and placed in display cases for mainstream society to gawp at. Our deities and ancestral spirits have been starved—Without tradition, without memory, we’ve become people with no history, living in a godless world with no one to rely on but ourselves. Hence the impossible position we find ourselves in.’

‘That’s the famous Shantou Hot Pot—He translates this into Japanese—Do they still do the Matsu pilgrimage here? Of course, I say, The procession is even grander, it goes from the west to east through—a full month—And doesn’t that music sound familiar? It’s a Jay Chou song—his early stuff was better—He was in full Che cosplay—A little banged up,—It feels like strolling alongside—a ghost—The statue of Martí looms silently behind him.’

‘—the situation in Guangzhou was similar to Miami—You could say—people were acting like zombies—and they had a strong herd instinct—If there were no women, you probably wouldn’t even be able to make yourself a pot of soup. Evita’s got it right, many people don’t realise just how much they’ve stolen from the poor—During that time, he was seeking investment opportunities—bought two hundred hectares of land to grow yerba maté—’

‘—fermenting in the warm humidity—He was aware that zoos could be considered imperialist, basically a prison in which animals are detained indefinitely—by humankind’s hubris. Yet zoos were known—as places you bring children of all ages—ideal choices for a family outing. The plaques at each cage—had chibi drawings—and so on. They walked around—looking at transplanted animals into environments that weren’t theirs, living confused existence in cramped surroundings. Duvier often visited to pass the time with them. Another meeting—a tour of Zhonghua Mall.’

‘—many countries including us—have found ourselves helpless in the face of problems brought on by—recessions, financial crises, mass unemployment—Then look at (them). You have to admire them, don’t you? Everyone gets—education—healthcare they need, there isn’t much of a wealth gap—I want to emphasise that the future—will be decided by the (people)—Are we prepared to pay the price for becoming what we ‘want’ to be?’

‘What once seemed useless now turns out to be extremely useful—the usefulness of uselessness? Literature reminds us—There are always other perspectives—other angles to view the issue from. You know the worst instrumentalist in a rock band is often the singer-songwriter, yet they get the most attention—I know I don’t know much, so I make an effort to learn—The entertainment factor makes things worse by amplifying a terrible situation.’

‘‘—You could call that an extreme form of a book review. All I’m saying is, don’t underestimate the critics—So that’s what Bathes meant by the death of the author.’’

‘—look, I guess everyone feels some kind of way about it—but the chaos—And it feels awkward living in someone else’s house for this long—enacting the greatest mass migration in human history.’

‘A point to ponder: (the country) has—stationed in many countries—capacity to strike anywhere in the world. With such force at their disposal—The novel’s scenario of scattered chaos remains plausible—The thought-provoking nature of this novel lies in its reversal of an actual situation—I believe the author is treating geographic coordinates as a metaphor—A bizarre form of equality—It wouldn’t be the first time. In 1924—the (country’s) elite—an attempt to ingratiate themselves with colonial powers while silencing (others). A hundred years has passed, and our journey is still ongoing.’

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

He idly googled facts about the country: a pirates’ haven in the fifteenth century; like Cuba, a former Spanish colony on the Tropic of Cancer; over 14,000 kilometers away; a population twice the size of Cuba’s, even though Cuba had three times the land mass. Taiwan’s relationship with China seemed complicated, much like Cuba’s to the USA. His Taiwanese friend once joked that they both came from places with the same humble wish: to be seen as a real country.

The Formosa Exchange (2026) is Jeremy Tiang's translation of 新寶島 (2021) by 黃崇凱 (Huang Chong-Kai), the original winning the Taiwan Literature Award’s Golden Book award

It is published by Honford Star - and this was a paid-for subscription copy not a review copy.

The novel opens on May 20th, 2024 (in the near future for the original book). Taiwan has just elected its first (ficticious) mixed-indigeneous President, from Alishan and the Tsou people, one who looks to Barack Obama as his role model, succeeding the real-life first female President.

But when the people of Taiwan wake up - they find themselves mysteriously transported to Cuba, all 23 million of them, the 11 million Cuban population having been transported in the opposite direction.

The novel that follows is less a piece of linear speculative fiction, but rather an inventive collage of different narrative forms, from both before and after 'the Great Exchange' as the event comes to be known.

The first piece is from the perspective of a Cuban artist, Duvier del Dago Fernández, who has a Taiwanese author friend, and about to visit Taiwan for an exhibition at the Cheng Long Wetlands International Environmental Art Project, before he finds himself transported there with his family.

Through the large windows was a dark street they’d never seen before. Duvier explored the apartment, trying to work out where they might be. Books and magazines everywhere, all in a language that might be Chinese or Japanese. Two rooms that looked like home offices with state-of-the-art computers on their desks. In one of them, he found an iPad on the sofa, fortunately not password protected, connected to the Wi-Fi. His wife opened a window, and from outside flooded in a cacophony of voices speaking Spanish. Going online, Duvier realized they were in the city called Taipei.

Another of the characters in this section is the real-life visual artist Rachel Valdés and this blend of fiction and real-life character is typical of the novel.

Most of the sections are from the Taiwanese perspective including the transcript of an interview with the new President (who as a literature graduate takes Obama's book club idea to a new level) which, although a little didactic, does explain how the two nations, as well as the US and China, react to the switch.

There is a neat section when one Taiwanese character's relative visits Cuba from Japan, where they now live and laments the authenticity of the food in Havana's Chinatown:

For their final meal before leaving for Japan, he chooses a turkey rice place that claims to be from Chiayi but regrets it as soon as they start eating. The rice is hard and full of broken grains, the meat is too lean, the fried shallots are soggy, the pickled radish isn’t crunchy, the miso soup comes out cold, and the century eggs served with the tofu taste too strong. He later tells me he thought of walking out but forced himself to finish the meal so as not to waste food, reassuring his wife and kids the whole time that the real thing tasted much better, they could see for themselves next time they were in Taiwan. Only afterwards did he remember the Taiwanese are over here, and even if he went all the way to Chiayi, the turkey rice wouldn’t taste the way he remembered it.

There is a section set in Guantánamo bay, based on the real-life Mohamedou Ould Slahi, with a Mauritian man visiting the now closed prison, but on the still American controlled base, where he was detained without charge for 14 years, and where those invited to the ceremony are more interested in accessing the McDonalds there, the only one on the island.

And that links to the White Terror in Taiwan and a section that covers the fate of the Indigenous Taiwanese intellectual Kao Yi-sheng, executed during that time through the story of his daughter, a singer.

There are also fictions-within-fictions. Duvier's Taiwanese novelist friend writes a book of speculative fiction, The Mainland Exchange, which imagines that instead of Cuba-Taiwan the switch was between the populations of US and China, and the book we're reading includes various reviews of this work:

If you choose to describe a seismic society-wide change by merely chronicling events from beginning to end, your readers will probably get bored. Instead, The Mainland Exchange shows us the developing situation through the eyes of its Taiwanese protagonist, frequently jumping in time and place to different individual encounters and changes in broader society, creating an overview of this scenario that manages to be both naturalistic and absurd.

Although the Mainland Exchange, unlike The Formosa Exchange, has zombies!

Another section is told from the perspective of Ramón Benítez Hernández, a Uruguayan businessman and friend of Ernesto "Che" Guevara. In the novel the two look almost identical but are separate people - although in the real-world Ramón was an alias use by Che. The two discuss Ernesto (Che)'s plan to "Create Two, Three, Many Vietnams" and has Ramón suggest to him that, having failed in Congo and while in the midst of his activities in Bolivia, he consider Taiwan as well:

I think Taiwan could be good, said Ramón. It’s ripe for being turned into a second Vietnam. If you dig straight down from Asunción through the center of the earth, you’ll get to Taipei. And Taiwan is antipodal to the border of Paraguay and Argentina’s Formosa province. Not too long ago, Taiwan was known as Formosa. An interesting coincidence, no? If we head over there and help Chairman Mao crush Chiang Kai-Shek, that should make the Yanks furious.

Ernesto laughed. I’ll have to stay alive till I get out of here, he said.

But then the novel adds an additional fictional element within its world - towards the novel's end Duvier works on an artistic installation, using holograms, that imagines this plan came to reality, and Che Guevera died not in Bolivia but in Taiwan.

The novel also draws on entnography, particularly that of Claude Lévi-Strauss whose “Tristes Tropiques” another character translates for Taiwanese readers. Václav Havel's essays are referenced, as are Hemingway's life and work as well as Graham Greene's “Our Man in Havana”, and The Formosa Exchange's reference section also includes:

“Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges, trans. James E. Irby.
“Journey Back to the Source” by Alejo Carpentier, trans. Harriet de Onís.
“History Will Absolve Me” by Fidel Castro, trans. Pedro Álvarez Tabío.
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“My Last Name” by Nicolás Guillén, trans. Roberto Márquez.
“Dirty Havana Trilogy” by Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, trans. Natasha Wimmer.
“The Trial” by Franz Kafka, trans. David Wyllie
“American Vertigo” by Bernard-Henri Lévy, trans. Charlotte Mandel.
“Restore Our Names” by maljaljaves mulaneng, trans. Tony Hao.
“Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville, trans. Henry Reeve.
“Weekend” by Tong Wei-Ger, trans. Luisetta Mudie.

Which gives some idea of the depth of this novel - and I suspect I missed whole layers of the book.

It's not the easiest of reads as a result - and certainly not the speculative fiction political-thriller one might imagine from the premise - but an impressively complex work.

[Steph | bookedinsaigon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to Honford Star and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review

I picked this one up because of Jeremy Tiang and, of course, TAIWAN. And, ummm… what was this? Although the premise is speculative in nature—one morning, the citizens of Taiwan and Cuba wake up to find that they’ve switched places with one another—THE FORMOSA EXCHANGE is much more suited for literary fiction savants than for those who love speculative fiction.

Let’s talk about what this book is not, first. THE FORMOSA EXCHANGE is not an exploration of how worlds and lives are altered forever by this surreal experience. In this book, the global order doesn’t change. There aren’t really main characters whose emotional growth we can hold on to as the story progresses.

Instead, we get a series of slightly connected separate tales, varying greatly in format and content. With the exception of a few chapters, most follow various Taiwanese characters. There’s a long-form interview with Taiwan’s first Indigenous president, a man who is described as the “Taiwanese Barack Obama”—and with similar political stances to boot. An Argentinian (?) businessman befriends Fidel Castro and watches as his friends attempt to bring Cuban-style revolution to various countries across Latin America… but he is also, I think, a ghost?? And a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Taiwanese navigate their crossed lives and their changing relationship with Indigenous identity politics.

The novel’s format is… rather experimental. The narrative is not always linear, neither between chapters nor from sentence to sentence. In one chapter, we even read about ANOTHER Great Exchange between two different countries—only to learn that this is an excerpt from an imaginary novel. (Huang himself becomes an author “character” as a result.)

I’ll admit, the point of this book kind of escapes me. I was hoping for more earth-shattering things to happen as a result of the Great Exchange, but instead very little happens. The characters change little as a result of the experience, and merely continue to live their lives as before, except in a different country.

Given this, I think that THE FORMOSA EXCHANGE will be best appreciated by lovers of slow, interior literary novels, rather than those, like me, who’d prefer some more plot and worldbuilding.

[Becky]

看得很順利，但讀完不知道這能不能算是「小說」，當然可以看得出作者意圖為何，但從大交換到各種角色登場讀了只覺得是作者的田調成果展示，看不到故事在哪裡，讀到最後默默想這種意圖真的有需要寫成三百多頁的小說嗎。

[Citron Pineapple · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this book is way overrated by the prizes this year. The content is too politically correct. And when an author wants to represent his political point of view, his most cliché way is having an interview as a politician…

aborigines, Japanese colonisation, those INEVITABLE subjects are Also included. Like what’s new???

Those meta literature kinda different personages writing their own books paragraphs… seem more like the author himself has tried different versions of this topic at the beginning but they didn’t work well but he still wants to cooperate all of them in this one.

But iHuang is a marvelous writer, the first chapter is probably the best part, followed by the chapter new China. Those two are really good.

[Mathilda · Rating 1 out of 5]

看不下去，前提那麼有趣結果寫成這樣，很失望。用小說當藉口評論各式各樣的東西，炫耀知識，描述各種大部分讀者沒看過的文學作品、藝術之類的，如果想看藝術我寧可去藝廊也不要讀這本小說，看小說是因為覺得前提有趣想看情結怎麼發展。

[Pin-Tsun · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating premise: what would happen if one day, 23 million Taiwanese and 11 million Cubans woke up to find themselves mysteriously teleported to each other's island? As two nations both long existing under the suffocating grips of their respective imperialist neighbouring superpowers (China and the US), can this Great Exchange provide a means of escape? Or would it only bring uncertainty and turmoil?

This book is an interesting mix of speculative fiction, historical fiction, and ethnography. However, it sometimes feels like the author is trying too much to cover too many bases at once. The stories within stories become quite difficult to follow. A lot of background knowledge is also necessary for the reader to understand what's going on—as if the author is flexing on how much more he knows than us—but it is not provided.

[Vivs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me ha encantado. A ratos he pensado que había cambiado de libro, porque cada capítulo es un escenario muy distinto y algunas historias no son tan fáciles de seguir como las otras. Pero la verdad me ha gustado el planteamiento inicial, los distintos personajes, el debate sobre la identidad, la libertad y las limitaciones.

[Dima · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book is essentially a fascinating thought experiment: what would happen if, suddenly, the entire population of Cuba were to swap places with that of Taiwan, while everything else remained unchanged?

The novel explores this idea through a series of chapters, each more or less standalone, approaching the premise from different angles. Some follow people directly affected by the switch; others take the form of historical digressions that provide broader context for how the two countries came to be so different and yet, in certain geopolitical respects, strikingly similar. Others still are structured around philosophical and political conversations between characters. There is even, at one point, a book-within-a-book device.

Overall, the best thing about the novel is unquestionably its premise. It really is a fascinating thought experiment, and the parallels between the geopolitical predicaments of Cuba and Taiwan had never occurred to me in quite this way before.

The execution, however, falls well below what I would consider acceptable literary standards. There are hardly any protagonists to speak of, and when dialogue does appear, it often feels less like communication between actual characters and more like an excuse for the author to proselytise. Much of the book consists of elaborate vehicles for telling the reader what the author thinks about Taiwan's entanglement with China and Cuba's relationship with the United States.

What makes this particularly irritating is the sense that the author is writing from a position of superior understanding of history, politics, economics, and geopolitics. Any reasonably well-read reader is likely to find this attitude insufferably pretentious. There is very little plot to speak of, and the characters are largely subordinated to the arguments the author wants to make.

Overall, this was a miss for me. After spending several hours with the book, I did not feel that I had gained much beyond what I had already taken from its premise and abstract.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

[Eshwarya · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

what would happen if the entire population of Taiwan and Cuba exchanged places one night? after the initial shock, not a whole lot, apparently.

The Formosa Exchange is described as speculative realism, but it reads a lot more like literary fiction and even non-fiction at times. the premise seems really exciting, but only a number of chapters directly explore what happens in the aftermath of what is deemed The Great Exchange. it’s written in quite an experimental fashion - for example there is a chapter which comprises a book review of an imaginary book and then a scene of a book club discussing said book. there isn’t really a cohesive narrative, and it was often non-linear. it honestly felt like the premise was used as a vehicle to explore the geopolitical landscape and history of Cuba and Taiwan as well as provide political commentary, which is why i said earlier that it felt like i was reading non-fiction. here i will openly admit that i do not have a lot of background knowledge about either of these countries, so a lot of it probably went over my head, but i also learnt quite a few things. like the fact that Taiwan was once known as Formosa, a name given by Portuguese sailors in the 1500s. and that the indigenous people of Taiwan only make up 2% of its population.

now that i’ve finished this book, i’m happy i chose to read it, but it wasn’t what i was expecting and it did take me a decent bit of effort to get through.

thank you to Netgalley and Honford Star for the advance reader copy.

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this book, first published in Taiwan in 2021, is a sort of thought experiment in geopolitics, What if the entire population of Taiwan swapped places overnight, with the entire population of Cuba in late May, 2024.

Huang can do a lot with this framework, but he chooses not to do what many would expect, examine how lives change, or how t global order changes. Instead, we get a collection of vaguely connected stories that vary considerably in length and content.

Most follow Taiwanese characters; there is for example a long interview with Taiwan’s first Indigenous president. One of the most interesting though concerns Ahmed, from Mauritania, was imprisoned for 15 years in Guantánamo Bay before ‘the Great Exchange’, and has been invited to Cuba in 2026 to witness how life has changed.

It is a brave piece of writing, too ambitious in many ways. It is highly experimental with narrative that is not always linear, and often difficult to follow. One of the chapters talks about another Great Exchange, but between two much larger countries. And it is of course, very political; it can hardly not be.

There are moments though which are very clever.

I’ve read the books published by Honford Star and enjoyed them a lot. Credit must go to them for publishing this, though it is the least enjoyable that I have read.

[Claire Bartholomew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this book is really interesting, but it didn't hold my attention despite my best efforts. One day, the residents of Taiwan and China suddenly switch places. No one has any idea how or why, but that's the new normal. This book follows different people in Taiwan and Cuba as they navigate their sudden new worlds.

This is pretty dense, and I struggled to get through it or fully understand it. I like the conceit of experiencing the switch from different characters' perspectives and different forms (some are more narratives, some are more abstract, some are podcast transcripts, etc.). But it made it hard to focus on any character or grasp what was happening. The book also shifts in time a fair amount and at times reads more like a history textbook. I found the explorations of Taiwanese and Cuban identity very interesting and wished the threads had connected just a bit more.

Thank you to NetGalley and Honford Star for an advance reader's copy in exchange for an honest review!

[I Lun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Your sociological imagination.

[Ronnica Fatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and a little bit wacky, this speculative story explores the impacts of colonization in a whole new way. I particularly enjoyed learning more about the indigenous people in Taiwan.

[Hagen · Rating 4 out of 5]

possibly the best translated fiction of the year thus far, will explore with a reread

[Nicki Markus · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

The Formosa Exchange was a book with a fascinating premise. It explored some really interesting themes too, such as the experiences of marginalised parts of society and the way historical narratives can be reshaped and cast in different lights. For the first third or so of the book I was really invested, but as the narrative style began to change I became more detached and found it increasingly hard to relate to the story and follow the author's intentions. I would say this is a book that is speculative in style as well as in content, and for me that didn't quite work. I think it may divide other readers too. I would recommend it for readers who don't mind more experimental narrative styles or those who are interested in speculative fiction firmly based in real contexts. I am giving it 3.5 stars.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.