GROUND ZERO

GROUND ZERO is a chilling and very timely literary suspense novel by young Taiwanese writer, Egoyan Zheng.

19 October 2015. There has been a level seven major accident at Taiwan's No 4 Nuclear Station and nuclear waste is spilling out, affecting the whole of northern Taiwan. The government tries to keep quiet about the scale of the incident, but patients are flooding northern Taiwan's hospitals, displaying classic symptoms of serious radiation poisoning. Two weeks later, one of the station's engineers, employed to check reports of faulty cooling systems and poor maintenance, is found in hospital, suffering from severe memory loss. He appears to have been wandering in the exclusion zone since the disaster, but has no memory of what he's been doing or why he didn't evacuate with the others. 27 April 2017. This very same engineer, Lin Qun-hao, is still being kept under surveillance, and is undergoing a radical new treatment called Dream Image Reconstruction. Dr Li Li-Ching is under instructions to help this man piece together what happened to him following the nuclear accident. That is, until the machine captures an image from Lin's sleep. It's grainy. A face. But it's him, no doubt about it. Hechen Duanfang, the ruling party's candidate in the upcoming presidential elections. Head of the Nuclear Safety Commission at the time of the disaster. Leader of a Special Death Mission, into the exclusion zone, to investigate the cause of the leak. A national hero. Dr Li makes a copy of the image before promptly being told to stop treatment. Lin and Dr Li realise they must have come across a vital piece of information, and someone wants them to stop digging. Meanwhile, Lin Qun-hao is mourning the loss of his fiancée, Violet. He can't remember what happened to her, all he knows is that the day of the disaster, she went back to the convent orphanage where she grew up close to No 4 Nuclear Station to invite the sisters to her upcoming wedding. But since the accident, Lin has been unable to locate any of the sisters or the disabled and orphaned children under their care, let alone his fiancée. They have just disappeared. All Lin has left is Violet's Facebook page, frozen in time, 19 October 2015. Alternating between the months before the disaster in 2015 and the lead-up to Taiwan's 2017 presidential elections, GROUND ZERO is a suspenseful journey through our notions of “civilization” and the lengths to which those in power will justify sacrificing their humanity and even human life for their own gain. The mushroom cloud of Fukishima hangs heavy over Egoyan Zheng's second novel, which makes use of the pace and mystery of the best of the thriller genre to create an engaging and relevant modern parable for our time. Egoyan Zheng (b.1977, pen name of Zheng Qianci) holds a Ph.D. in Chinese Literature, alongside degrees in psychology and medicine from Taiwan's top universities. He is one of Taiwan's most acclaimed young writers, having been selected for several prestigious short story collections and prizes in Taiwan. He has also had international recognition, having been shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007 alongside Nobel winner Mo Yan and Guo Xiaolu, and the Frank O'Connor short story award in 2008.