|
Title |
From Local History to East Asian History and World History: The Cross-Cultural and Cross-Racial Perspectives in Badai's History Fiction |
|
Author |
Lin, Fang-Mei |
|
Professor, Department of Taiwan Culture, Languages and Literature, National Taiwan Normal University |
|
|
Abstract |
Badai is one of the most important indigenous writers in Taiwan. In recent years he has devoted himself to writing historical fiction from the perspective of Indigenous peoples in Taiwan. This paper takes three novels written by Badai as the objects of studies in order to explore how indigenous history in Taiwan can be related to East Asian history and world history. These three novels are: The Last Queen, Reef, and Waves. The author intends to point out the differences between Indigenous peoples and Han people in terms of historical memories and interpretations of events in 1895-1896. The author first studies the role of historical fiction in Taiwanese literature. Second, the author analyzes Badai’s narrative skills, with regard to his special ability to create multiple dialogues among people with different gender, ethnic and racial backgrounds. Finally, this paper explores the relationships among local history, East Asian history and world history. The time span in these three novels is roughly more than two decades, but the places and nations mentioned in the novels are diverse and cover a wide region. In addition to well-known Taiwan, Qing dynasty, and Japan, there are Ryukyu Islands, American diplomat Charles de Gendre who served as the advisor of Japanese government, and 17th century Dutch explorers as background. Badai uses different perspectives and switches these diverse perspectives in the unfolding of plots, and this kind of writing strategy enables different ethnic and racial groups to express themselves. Indigenous peoples and other subaltern groups who have been marginalized in mainstream history are empowered to speak for themselves. Hereby we can re-evaluate big historical events in terms of common people and their daily life instead of focusing on the nation as the main actor of history. |
