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Title |
Yeh Shih-Tao and Chen Ying-Chen: Two Aspects of Leftist Fiction in 1980s Taiwan |
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Author |
Chen, Fang-Ming |
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Professor, Graduate Institute of Taiwan literature, National Chengchi University |
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Abstract |
Yeh Shih-Tao (1925-2008) and Chen Ying-Chen (1937-) were the two representative writers in the spectrum of political ideology for “ pro-independence leftist” and “pro-unification leftist” respectively in 1980s Taiwan. Before and after the lifting of martial law during the 1980s when the development of capitalism continued to reach its apex whereas the waves of globalization began to sweep across this small island, the reshaping and reemergence of the leftist memory had attracted wide attention from the literary scene in Taiwan. Yeh’s memoir The 1950s of An Old Taiwanese Writer and Chen’s series fiction Bell Flowers had cast retrospective gaze upon the post-war leftist movement, both of which not only bore the unbearable and unspeakable marks of historical wounds done by the era of authoritarianism, but also witnessed the transformation of Taiwanese society done by the coming of capitalism. The inner pain as expressed in their literary writings was even heavier than their experience of prison in the past. In the face of the ever rising democratic movement, both of them embraced the high expectation of Taiwan’s future. Therefore, their works were devoted to competing for the rights for interpreting history and for the voice in the polemics over “homeland literature”. The trend of globalization enabled them to choose different sides of the democratic movement, but their critical attitudes toward capitalism remained the same. This article proposes to reexamine the red legacy of Taiwanese literature and to search for the tragic fate of the two intellectuals of pro-independence and pro-unification leftists. |
