Literary Culture in Taiwan Martial Law to Market Law

Chang analyzes the political and economic forces that have shaped the publishing world in Taiwan from the middle of the last century to the present and the literary and cultural texts produced within this shifting landscape. Literary Culture in Taiwan positions various writers and genres squarely within the tensions between cultural production and the market-authorized economy of the past two decades, particularly in regard to cultural identity formations and their relationship to hegemonic and resistant powers. The lifting of martial law - and thus state-sponsored censorship - in 1987 introduced an electoral democracy that altered emerging literary trends and cast a dramatic new light on Taiwan's literary history. Chang traces this gradual but profound change and explores how multiple literary movements responded to one another and to the country's social and political upheaval.