His ecological parable The Man with the Compound Eyes (2011) was published in English in 2013, and was awarded "The Best Chinese Fiction Books of the Last Century" on Time Out Beijing in 2015.

He is considered one of the major Taiwanese writers of his generation with writings translated into English, French, Turkish, Japanese, Korean, Czech and Indonesian.

The book has been described as "a masterpiece of environmental literature about an apocalyptic aboriginal encounter with modernity...Trash, resource shortages, and the destruction of Taiwan's coastline as a result of the pursuit of unenlightened self-interest are unremarkable raw materials, but [Wu Mingyi] mashes them into art.

[8] An English translation was published in 2017,[9] and in March 2018 the book was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize.

[10] In April 2018, the Man Booker International Prize made the final call stating that "Wu Ming-Yi is listed as ‘Taiwan’".