In 2002, after living ten years in Asia, American poet and musician
Scott Ezell used his advance from a local record company to move to
Dulan, on Taiwan’s remote Pacific coast. He fell in with the Open
Circle Tribe, a loose confederation of aboriginal woodcarvers,
painters, and musicians who lived on the beach and cultivated a
living connection with their indigenous heritage. Most members of
the Open Circle Tribe belong to the Amis tribe, which is descended
from Austronesian peoples that migrated from China thousands of
years ago. As a “nonstate” people navigating the fraught politics
of contemporary Taiwan, the Amis of the Open Circle Tribe exhibit,
for Ezell, the best characteristics of life at the margins,
striving to create art and to live autonomous, unorthodox lives.
In Dulan, Ezell joined song circles and was invited on an
extended hunting expedition; he weathered typhoons, had love
affairs, and lost close friends. In A Far Corner Ezell draws on
these experiences to explore issues on a more global scale,
including the multiethnic nature of modern society, the
geopolitical relationship between the United States, Taiwan, and
China, and the impact of environmental degradation on indigenous
populations. The result is a beautifully crafted and personal
evocation of a sophisticated culture that is almost entirely
unknown to Western readers.