9 Local Literature in Ambivalence

Abstract

The local literature in Taiwan and Manchukuo appeared in an era when the New Order in East Asia and the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere were established consecutively, and it was therefore shaped by the grand scheme of the empire. Nishikawa Mitsuru offered a superficially affirmative presentation of all the literati, including left-wing writers, who subscribed to a conflicting ideology, and writers, who held different literary opinions. From 1938 to 1942, the idea of Taiwanese literature in the South developed alongside the progress of the Japanese empire, which was affected by the southward policy, the idea of the East Asian New Order, and the establishment of Imperial Rule Assistance Association. The concepts of literature and of Manchurian literature were imagined, constructed cultural spaces that revealed the instability of Japanese identity in the colonies. The Japanese colonial literature of Taiwan existed in a paradox.Keywords: East Asia; imperial rule assistance association; Japanese colonial literature; Japanese empire; Manchurian literature; Nishikawa Mitsuru; literature