施叔青與鍾文音，出生於鹿港與雲林的兩位臺灣女作家，皆具豐富的旅居異地經驗，此一經年移動的身體感知，促使她倆不斷思索「我是誰」、「我在哪裡」之核心命題，並藉由閱讀女藝術家如芙烈達‧卡蘿與安娜梅迪耶塔之受苦經驗，深刻反思身體的多元議題—受苦肉「身」與曖昧「身」分，此行旅與閱讀經驗不僅以散文或短篇小說形式出版，更轉化為家／國族史之素材，醞釀並深化其《臺灣三部曲》與《島嶼百年物語》之撰構。相較於施叔青以細膩深刻的受苦肉身敘事重構不同時代、多元族群的三段臺灣苦難史，鍾文音則以繁複幽微的身體隱喻回顧家族乃至於臺灣人的肉身斲殤，即便內容和敘事風格各異，兩位女小說家皆有意地聚焦於身體，細摹身體的苦痛細節，凸顯諸種臺灣人的身心苦難，以受苦敘事和身體隱喻映照臺灣史，無論是清領、日治與國民黨統治的臺灣歷史，或從臺灣白色恐怖到經濟起飛的臺灣發展史，施叔青、鍾文音所構築的臺灣斷代史或可視為臺灣的身體受苦史。

Shih Shu-ching and Chung Wen-yin, two female Taiwanese novelists born in Lukang and Yunlin, have abundant traveling experiences, which had kept them pondering on the core issues of "Who am I" and "Where am I". Furthermore, they reflect deeply on different perspectives of the "Body", which refers to the suffering flesh and ambiguous identification through reading and analyzing the stories of female artists such as Frida Kahlo and Anna. Those traveling and reading experiences have not only been published as essays and short stories, but also transformed and refined as materials to construct family and nationality history, which all deepen the Taiwan Trilogy and the Island Trilogy. Compared to Shih Shu-ching, who reconstructs three different pieces of Taiwan's history by exquisite suffering narrative, Chung Wen-yin mirrors families and Taiwanese's traumatic past by delicate body metaphor. Even though the novel content and narrative styles are different, Shih Shu-ching and Chung Wen-yin both seem to consciously focus on the body image, especially at the vivid depiction of suffering details to emphasize Taiwanese's suffering experience. They also tend to use suffering narratives and body metaphors to echo different periods in Taiwan's history. Accordingly, the portrait of history in Taiwan Trilogy has been seen as the history of suffering.