Modern literature of Taiwan: between China and the world

Abstract

Taiwan literature was influenced initially by the May Fourth Movement in mainland China but increasingly by Japanese literature during the colonial period. The transition from Japanese colonialism to Chinese rule in 1945-1949 resulted in the silencing of most native Taiwanese writers. Hence, the literary scene in postwar Taiwan in the 1950s-1960s was dominated by emigre writers from the mainland characterized by nostalgia and anti-communism. At the same time, a new generation of writers emerged and played a formative role in the modernist movement. In the 1970s-1980s, many writers turned away from modernism toward a realist, socially engaged literature, which may be subsumed under a broadly defined nativism. Into the 1990s, Taiwan literature reflects the democratization and liberalization in the social and political domains. In the new century, the shrinking of the market for serious literature and the thriving of Internet literature have created a highly bifurcated literary scene. Taiwan literature as world literature has also received much attention in public space.