MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Lingchei Letty Chen’s review of Taiwanese Literature as World Literature, edited by Pei-yin Lin and Wen-chi Li. The review appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/letty-chen/. Normally, our literary studies book review editor, Nicholas Kaldis, would oversee publication of this review, but since he has a chapter in the book, I filled in for him. Enjoy.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

Taiwanese Literature as World Literature

Edited by Pei-yin Lin and Wen-chi Li

Reviewed by Lingchei Letty Chen

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright July, 2023)

Pei-yin Lin and Wen-chi Li, eds. Taiwanese Literature as World Literature London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. 232pp. ISBN 9781501381355 (cloth).

The consequences of WWII and the subsequent Cold War exacerbated Taiwan’s long-held peripheral position in the international community. Taiwanese literature, as a result, has stood on the margin of Chinese literature. But that was last century. Now in the twenty-first century, Taiwan has moved into a more prominent position in global geopolitical and economic conflicts, particularly between the US and China, and Taiwanese literature has gained higher visibility through international circulation. In the past few years, we have seen more and more conferences, symposiums, and workshops featuring Taiwan and Taiwanese literature. Thanks also to the controversial notion of Sinophone, which has generated a great number of productive discussions and debates in the last decade or so, Taiwanese literature has attracted unprecedented attention from scholars around the world. With publications such as The Making of Chinese-Sinophone Literatures as World Literature (Hong Kong UP, 2022) and Taiwanese Literature as World Literature, which is under review here, it is not difficult to foresee how “Sinophone,” “world literature,” and “Taiwanese literature” will continue to be entwined in more scholarly work to come.

The edited volume, Taiwanese Literature as World Literature, is published by Bloomsbury Academic under the series Literatures as World Literature. It is not often that we see an Asian/East Asian scholarly work published by Bloomsbury Academic, a niche academic publisher known primarily for its imprints in British and European studies; The Arden Shakespeare and Methuen Drama, for example, are two of its prestigious imprints. A quick browse of its website and we find it has an “Asia Studies” umbrella category. Searching more closely its sub-categories, under East Asia Studies one finds only six titles; but fifty-one results under China studies; and twelve results under Asian Literature. The Literatures as World Literature series has twenty-eight titles, among which Taiwanese Literature as World Literature and Pacific Literatures as World Literature are Asia/East Asia related. Apparently for a niche academic publisher such as Bloomsbury Academic to expand beyond its traditional coverage, tapping into Asian studies and world literature studies is a smart route to go. For Taiwanese literature to have its distinct title in this series is certainly a laudable effort by the two editors, Pei-yin Lin and Wen-chi Li. Continue reading →

MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Po-hsi Chen’s review of A History of Taiwan Literature, by Ye Shitao, translated and edited by Christopher Lupke. The review appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/po-hsi-chen/. My thanks to Michael Hill, our translation/translation studies book review editor, for ushering the review to publication.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

A History of Taiwan Literature

Ye Shitao

Translated, Edited, and Introduced by Christopher Lupke

Reviewed by Po-hsi Chen

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright April, 2023)

Ye Shitao, A History of Taiwan LiteratureTranslated, with introduction and epilogue, by Christopher Lupke. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2020. 404 pp. ISBN: 9781638570035 (paperback).

In 2022, Yeh Shih-tao, a Taiwan Man 台灣男子葉石濤 (dir. Hsu Hui-lin 許卉林) was released, marking a rare occasion where a documentary about a Taiwanese literary writer hit the big screen. The film’s subject, Ye Shitao (1925–2008), was a renowned novelist and literary historian. In the previous year, Christopher Lupke’s much-anticipated translation of Ye’s A History of Taiwan Literature 台灣文學史綱 was awarded the well-deserved MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature. Before its translation, this book was long considered a must-read for students interested in pursuing a degree in Taiwanese literature. Given the relatively marginalized status of Taiwanese literary history in English-language curricula, Lupke’s contribution is significant. Although a general history of Taiwan can be taught by using Wan-yao Chou’s A New Illustrated History of Taiwan,[1] a similar resource for literature was not available until this translation was published. Moreover, before Lupke’s translation, there was no comprehensive book in English that systematically covers the history of Taiwanese literature from the late imperial to the post-martial law period.[2] In the English translation, Ye’s original text is bookended by Lupke’s detailed introduction and an epilogue that chronicles the post-1987 development of Taiwanese literature. Continue reading →