英文摘要 |
In Taiwan, at the turn of the new century, half a century has passed since the dramatic year of 1949, marking an end to the youth of the post-war generation who found themselves in their bittersweet middle age. The Taiwanese localization movement since the 1980s has now become a prominent and irresistible trend. Bidding farewell to their youth, anticipating the brink of old age, while trapped in the crevasses of history and a generation gap, how did those middle-aged second-generation Mainlander writers contend with the unavoidable rupture in their lives and redefine themselves through their writing?
By connecting a series of micro autobiographical narratives written by individual writers, this article aims at exploring how individual writers, by reflecting on their personal experiences, respond through autobiographies to the challenges raised by their new homeland. It also investigates the connection (or disconnection) between personal and collective history.
This article takes on a relatively special form of academic writing. As a narrative historical research article, it is expected to return to the narrative tradition of classical historiography without compromising its academic value. This is also a research where the author himself is both an observer as well as a participant. While lurking behind the entire grand narrative, the author’s role only becomes overt at the end of the article to mark an abrupt ending to the project. |