New Literature Movement

Source: The New Literature Movement of the Japanese Colonial Period in Taiwan and Its Historical Context
From: Yidiǎnxīn Blog
Date: October 29, 2009   Author: Yidiǎnxīn

Taiwan’s New Literature Movement can be traced back to the Han-Chinese social and political movements of the 1920s. A new generation, born after the onset of Japanese rule and fortunate enough to study in Japan, was shaped by the wave of national awakening that followed World War I; they began to critically interrogate their identity under colonial rule. In 1920, these Taiwan-born students in Tokyo founded the New Citizen’s Society (Shinminkai); the following year, Chiang Wei-shui established the Taiwan Cultural Association under its guidance. The Association promoted intellectual literacy, modern thought, and resistance to Japan’s de-Sinicization policies through its newsletter, public lectures, theater troupes, and popular film screenings. Under the Cultural Association’s wide-ranging influence, not only did the New Literature Movement take root, but a reformation of theater also began to emerge.

External Links

• Taiwan’s New Literature Movement Since the Japanese Colonial Era — From Modernism to Nativist Literature and Its Transformations (Yīdú)
• The New Literature Movement During the Japanese Colonial Period in Taiwan
• Lai He and the New Taiwanese Literature Movement (National Cheng Kung University)
• Literary Journals and the Development of New Taiwanese Literature: Observations from the Japanese Colonial Period (Wénxùn Magazine)