Introduction

Sanmao, known by her English name Echo, born in 1943, was a Taiwanese writer who spent half her life living in the Sahara desert with her Spanish husband José. During the post-war period when travels were more restricted and people were less open to different cultures, this young Asian woman left her footprints all over Europe. Stories of her travels and life in the desert are penned down in simple but mesmerizing words published in the press. To the young female Taiwanese students whose lives are restricted within a conservative educational system, she is a symbol of a free and bold female being who follows her own voice in search of her own definition of life and love. 

We never learn the full nature of Echo, this earliest and most important Taiwanese female literary travel writer. A part of her is seen through her words for her faithful Taiwanese and Chinese readers, but a larger part is left with the people in the Western Sahara (occupied by Spain at the time); José, the love of her life; the childhood trauma that suspended her in time; and her familiars in the West. 

What are the faces of Echo? 

Echo’s earlier writings reveal a colorful and illustrated inner world. Later writings from the desert are plain and simple, and those from the time before her eventual suicide leave readers in sorrow for her loss of José. Her language is always light and soft, as though she is only a part of the surroundings that form her life rather than the leading actress; within her words, there is always a kind of unrestricted flow. Changes in her linguistic style can only show us a portion of what these experiences may have meant to her. 

Through the lenses separating Echo and her surroundings, we view a set of photographs of ourselves. What has stayed the same and what has left us in the time following her travels? Perhaps our attraction towards Echo speaks to something within, and, as we peek into her life, we are peeking into our own lives between the East and the West — as a Taiwanese writer and percussionist who have lived in Europe and an American composer who has lived in Europe and Asia.

To present our answers as a communication through time and space, we weave our own stories into selected texts of Sanmao. Our methodology for the text includes elements of improvisation and word play to form a script consisting of Echo’s own voice in combination with her surroundings. The languages from Sanmao’s lived environments – and our own – are used to form the script. The electronics and the vocalizations of the percussionist create a web of multiple story lines and narratives. Instruments that serve the musicality of the story are both ones constructed for the piece, as well as objects that are alluded to in Echo’s work.

Autumn Yunting Tsai
January 2022