Mapping queer literature in translation: A survey of globalized queer fiction produced in Taiwan in 1990s

Abstract

ABSTRACT 1990s witnessed the liberation of previously disregarded voices―such as those of homosexuals in Taiwan. Intellectual pluralism and homosexual visibility began to flourish during this remarkable decade, while the concept of queer emerged on the island’s academic and literary landscapes as a response to the globalized queerness. This paper is an attempt to testify the validity of a remodeled criteria in light of four Taiwan-made queer novels in the 1990s in transnational circulation. This article first looks at the historical context of Taiwan in the 1990s that favored the production of queer texts. Adopting a revised “International Recognition Indicators” model, this article outlines how four Taiwanese queer novels have transformed from local stardom to transnational visibility by examining how they have been critiqued and received by global readers. The nexus of this essay is to identify the “worlding” power, operation, and problems arising from translations that constitute the landscape of Taiwanese queer fiction in the 1990s. Findings show that the island’s peculiar queerness hinges on translation proper and manifold internal/external forces as a whole to make it a readily accessible cross-cultural commodity.