Sinophone Studies by Shu-mei Shih

Author:Shu-mei Shih
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2012-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

Proletarian Fiction: Nativist and Critical Modernity

The New Taiwan Literature Movement of the 1920s and 1930s tried to change people’s worldviews to assist in political and social modernization. Eventually it sought to rid Taiwan of Japanese control. Socialist ideals were introduced in response to practical demands from people in Taiwan. Different voices began to emerge in terms of defining “culture and arts for the people” and “literature for the people.”

The development of proletarian literature, also known as “left-wing literature” (zuoyi wenxue), in Taiwan was by and large suppressed by the Japanese colonial government. Nonetheless, socialist ideas and nativist concerns in proletarian fiction still cast light on the multifaceted aspects of literary modernity in Taiwan.

Taiwan literature started to demonstrate more explicit leftist tendencies in the 1930s. Leftist journals were established one after another, and small communities of Taiwanese leftist writers were formed. The so-called “Cultural Enlightenment Movement” initiated by the Taiwan Cultural Association (Taiwan bunka kyōkai or Taiwan wenhua xiehui) in 1927 transformed into a proletarian literary movement. “Art and literature for the masses” became the leading principle in the literary field. Wurenbao was the first magazine to promote arts for the masses in the 1930s. In addition to Wurenbao, Taiwan zhanxian (Taiwan battlefront), in its inaugural issue, vows “to look after the poor and hard-working people by offering proletarian literature and art, and to liberate them from capitalist oppression.”5 The class-conscious statement and its tone against capitalism are overt.

Yang Kui (1905–1985) was the most productive writer under the banner of proletarian literature. Yang’s proletarian story “Newspaper Boy” (Shimbun Haitatsufu) won a literary award in Bungaku hyōron (Literary review) in Tokyo, as Yang became the first Taiwanese writer to win a Japanese literary award. In the story, Yang strongly criticizes Japanese colonialism in Taiwan. He also proposes an internationalist ideal that attempts to bring together proletarians from all over the world, placing the colonial modernity of Taiwan in a larger, transnational and anticapitalist context.

Yang Shouyu (1905–1959) was another proletarian writer. Once an active anarchist, he wrote stories such as “A Group of Unemployed Persons” (Yiqun shiye de ren, 1931) and “Break up” (Juelie, 1932) that demonstrate his strong awareness of class struggle. With his characters—especially farmers, workers, and women—Yang vividly exposes social inequality. Struggling to make ends meet, these characters help define the margins and limits of a Taiwanese society troubled by Japanese colonialism and capitalism.

After Yang Kui, Lu Heruo (1903–1947) is another writer who has made a name for himself in Japan with his short story “The Ox Carriage” (Gyūsha, 1935). The story was also published by Bungaku hyōron. In the story, Lu, through the trope of the ox carriage, which is soon to be replaced by automobiles, criticizes the unforgiving force of Japanese colonialism and the adverse side effects of modernization that farmers must face.

In the meantime, like proletarian fiction’s criticism of capitalism, nativism also refuted the “pseudo-progressive” side of coloniality and affirmed native culture and its legacy. The collection of folklore and the Taiwanese Language Movement (Taiwan huawen yundong)

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