The current studies of Taiwanese literary localism have built its framework mostly on novel; prose, by contrast, is often overlooked. However, prose has crucial significance for Taiwanese literary localism, in that it articulates and represents personal lives and historical experiences. Prose is based on reality, engaging with literary expression and the politics of memory. When Taiwanese writers who lived through the Japanese colonial period wrote about their past experiences in prose, their writings were characterized by a historical narrative. As such, their writings are both autobiographies and “Mnemonic-Historical Materials of Literature.” During the martial law era when Japanese colonial memories are suppressed, their prose collections are the first-hand texts for the post-war generation to learn about Japanese colonization; furthermore, they play a vital role in constructing the history of Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule and the history of Taiwanese literature. This paper focuses on Taiwanese writers under Japanese Colonial Rule, who had published prose collections during the life time or posthumously, from the early post-war years to the period just before the lifting of martial law. Through textual analysis, the paper investigates the life histories and spiritual histories to foreground the historical consciousness in these individuals. The paper also explores the notion of genre and the language use of prose to discuss the significance of publishing proses in a different era. The paper seeks to indicate that local proses serve to reconstruct historical memories during the martial law era, forming a local history narrative tradition distinct from the Chinese lyrical tradition. Following this vein, the paper reevaluates the significance of Taiwanese local prose in the history of Taiwanese literature, so as to enrich the scope of Taiwanese literary localism.