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John talks to Anna Beth Keim about her acclaimed biography, Heaven Does Not Block All Roads: A History of Taiwan Through the Life of Huang Chin-tao. Huang Chin-tao (1926–2019) lived through every twist and turn of Taiwan’s turbulent twentieth century. He served as a Japanese soldier in China during World War II, joined an armed uprising against Taiwan’s Chinese Nationalist post-war government (the 2-28 Incident of 1947), then went into hiding. He served with the Republic of China Navy before being captured and spending 23 years in prison. Once more a free man, he became a driving force in the pro-democracy movement. It was an amazing life, and this biography does a wonderful job of telling it.

Heaven Does Not Block All Roads was published by UK indie press Hurst in 2025.