ABSTRACT
The redefinition of one's identity can be elegantly expressed in Chinese by a change of pen name, the subject of the piece below. Lin had already written two dozen books under his first pen name, Bizhu, before he switched to Lin Shuangbu in 1980. He had gone through a crisis, apparently coming to doubt his literary talent and despairing of the limits of literature. For a time, he considered becoming a social activist and politician like Wang Tuo. Finally he decided upon a more direct expression of "Taiwaneseness" in his future writing. He documented his symbolic rebirth by renaming himself.
