Apuntes de un cocodrilo

Notes of a crocodile, a cult classic, is the first work by Taiwanese author Qiu Miaojin, published in 1994. The story revolves around a group of young queer college students (an English term that defines a sexual or gender identity that does not correspond with established ideas of sexuality). Lazi, the narrator, has a relationship with Shuiling, but they soon break up. Chukuang is in love with another young man, Mengsheng, whom he sees only once a year. Tuntun and Zhirou were together in high school but split up when they get to college and now both have unhappy relationships with men. All the characters, witty, sad and weird, but each in their own way, seem to live an isolated existence, separated from family and society and in despair they become self-destructive. In the university they manage to become aware of who they are, it is the moment of discovery. Paradoxically, far from representing the beginning of a new stage, they will be dragged into a life of restrictions and dissatisfaction. Their only relief is the friendship that unites them, a territory of freedom, a microworld in which they allow themselves to be themselves. The backdrop for the novel is Taipei, a city portrayed in the early years following the lifting of Martial Law, eager to Westernize itself and create an identity of its own independent of China. In this quest for differentiation, homosexuality (considered a mental illness in China) was not condemned in Taiwan, but neither was it openly accepted. Thus, the crocodile represents the consciousness of a diverse sexuality, and like any other animal lives on the fringes of human settlement and they are reluctant to be seen.