Taiwan's Postcoloniality and Postwar Memories of Japan

Abstract

This article deals with the relationship between Taiwan's postcoloniality and postwar memories of the Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945) in Taiwanese fiction, with a special focus on the politics of re-memory in Shih Shu-ching's Taiwan Trilogy (2003-2010). I argue that Taiwan's postcoloniality and postwar memories of the Japanese rule are linked partly because of the Kuomintang's refusal until the lifting of martial law (1987) to see a decolonized Taiwan, and that the burgeoning of postcolonial Taiwanese fiction in recent decades, with more positive or complex reimagining of the Japanese period, deepens our rethinking of what constitutes Taiwan's postcoloniality. Using Shih Shu-ching's Taiwan Trilogy as my case study, I examine how the rewriting of Taiwan's national history provides a particularly interesting reengagement with Japanese colonialism in Taiwan. In light of Pheng Cheah's rethinking on world literature, I explore further how the trilogy's re-memory renegotiates with Japanese colonial legacy and presents the case of Taiwan's postcoloniality, which in turn may incite new thoughts on postcoloniality around the world and particularly in East and Southeast Asia. The conclusion draws on Ping-hui Liao's notion of alternative modernity to illuminate Taiwan's postcoloniality.