Taiwanese Literature

Colonialism in Taiwan began in the early seventeenth century with the Dutch and reached its peak under the Japanese and Nationalist Chinese regimes of the twentieth century. Taiwan has been a land of immigrants up to the present time. Though there are several ethnicities on the island (even the Han immigrants have cultural diversity), the Taiwanese have tried to establish a national literature that could contribute to the formation of Taiwan's national and cultural identity. To highlight the link between literature and nationality in a time of political turmoil, many scholars/writers tend to divide the development of postwar Taiwan literature into five periods (1945-present). The colonial history of Taiwan happens to illustrate the post-colonial paradox or dilemma: Having no other choice but to use the colonizer's languages and theories, nativist Taiwanese writers always engage in a contradictory and compulsive pursuit to construct/recover a national literature and language or national culture and history that have long been marginalized, suppressed, misrepresented, or even destroyed.