Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule for fifty years from 1895 to 1945, and was therefore greatly influenced by Japan in political, economic, and cultural matters. This influence continued to play a role in Taiwan’s development even after World War II and the end of formal Japanese rule. The “Imperial Subject Movement” (Kominka undō) promoted during Japanese colonial rule was a phenomenon that must be faced in order to understand this particular period of history in Taiwan. The Imperial Subject Literature it produced is a page in the history of Taiwan literature that cannot be denied. For this special issue entitled “Imperial Subject Literature in Taiwan,” we have selected and translated a number of representative works in the hope that they will help English readers to better understand this special phenomenon, the literary works it produced, and its place in the history of Taiwan literature.
Kuo-ch’ing Tu
（杜國清）, born in Taichung, Taiwan. His research interests include Chinese literature, Chinese poetics and literary theories, comparative literature East and West, and world literatures of Chinese (Shi-Hua wenxue). He is the author of numerous books of poetry in Chinese, as well as translator of English, Japanese, and French works into Chinese.
Terence Russell
（羅德仁） is an Associate Professor in the Asian Studies Center at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His early research dealt with classical Chinese literature and religion but for the past few years his interest has turned to contemporary literature in Chinese, especially the literature of Taiwan’s indigenous people. He has a strong interest in translation and translation theory.
【譯者簡介】
Christopher Ahn
is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University and holds a J.D. degree from Cornell Law School. His research interests include the construction of race and national identity in imperial and postwar Japan, citizenship in comparative perspective, and critical theory.
Faye Yuan Kleeman
is an Associate Professor of Japanese at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she teaches Japanese literature. She received her Ph.D. in Japanese Language and Literature from University of California, Berkeley in 1991. Since 2004, she has translated several works by authors such as Nakagami Kenji and Fujii Shōzō into English. Her first book,
Under an Imperial Sun: Japanese Colonial Literature of the South
, was published in 2003 and has been translated into Japanese and Chinese. From 2009 to 2010, a Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship allowed research that culminated in her second book,
In Transit: The Formation of the Colonial East Asian Cultural Sphere
, which was published in 2014.
Jon B. Reed
graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in Japanese Studies. Two decades later, he earned an M.A. in English from Sonoma State University, followed by a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He served as a professor at Sanyo Gakuen University, a private college in Kayama, Japan, for 16 years until his retirement in 2008. Published papers include studies of Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Vladimir Nabokov.
Hiroaki Sato
(b. 1942) has published three dozen translations of Japanese poems. Among them, F
rom the Country of Eight Islands: An Anthology of Japanese Poetry
(Doubleday, 1981), with Burton Watson, won the PEN American Center translation prize. He has also translated into Japanese John Ashbery (
A Wave
), Geoffrey O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, and Jerome Rothenberg. Among his prose translations are Yukio Mishima’ s novel,
Silk and Insight
, and
My Friend Hitler and Other Plays
, which culminated in
Persona: A Biography of Yukio Mishima
, his greatly expanded adaptation in English of Naoki Inose’s book on the same author. He writes a monthly column for The
Japan Times
, “The View from New York.”
Lili Selden
received her Ph.D. in Japanese Literature from the University of Michigan. She has taught Japanese literature, film, and language at several postsecondary institutions in the United States, including the University of Notre Dame and Oberlin College. She is currently working in Washington, D.C., as a freelance translator and editor.
Foreword to the Special Issue on Imperial Subject Literature in Taiwan╱Kuo-ch’ing Tu
「台灣皇民文學專輯」卷頭語／杜國清
The Volunteer（志願兵）／周金波╱Translated by Hiroaki Sato
Noma（水癌）／周金波╱Translated by Faye Yuan Kleeman
The Path（道）／陳火泉╱Translated by Lili Selden
Where the Water Ends and the Wind Begins（風頭水尾）／呂赫若／Translated by Christopher Ahn
