Failed Migrations: Big Tech Engineers and the Diasporic Experience in Spent Bullets

“Never give up.” “Work harder.” We push through challenge after challenge in pursuit of success in a foreign land - but at what cost? 

Set in Taiwan and Silicon Valley, Spent Bullets explores the lives of brilliant young engineers navigating the pressures of hyper-competitive systems. Terao Tetsuya’s piercing stories examine the hidden tolls of ambition, the complexities of masculinity, and the ways queer identity shapes the choices of those building lives abroad. With insight and precision, the collection of stories exposes the burdens of ambition, the absurdities of striving, and the personal costs of measuring worth by endurance and sacrifice.

Join Terao Tetsuya and translator Kevin Wang as they discuss Spent Bullets, unpacking the promise and heartache of Taiwanese tech workers abroad. 

About the Author:
Terao Tetsuya graduated from National Taiwan University with degrees in Computer Science and Information Engineering, and earned a master’s degree in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon. He worked as an engineer at Google before turning to writing full-time. His debut short story collection, Spent Bullets, won the Taiwan Literature Awards’ Golden Book Award and the New Bud Award. He currently lives in Taiwan.

About the Translator:
Kevin Wang is a Taipei-based writer and Fulbright grantee with an MFA from Columbia University. His co-translation of Chi Ta-wei’s History of Tongzhi Literature is forthcoming from Columbia University Press. His work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Circumference, The Margins, and Asymptote.