Jana Benesova - Taiwanese Women's Literature and the Involvement of Women Authors in the Society
Abstract:
In my talk I will give a brief introduction into the Taiwanese women's literature (since the Japanese colonial period onward) and then talk more about the women's fiction in the 1980s, generally known as "the Second Golden Age of Taiwanese women’s fiction". Despite their often contradictory relationship to feminism, the authors active during the 1980s were (mostly) very eager to adopt the role of "educators" and played an important role in the consciousness-raising and gender-awareness movement in the Taiwanese society. Some of them, like Li Ang, Xiao Sa, Liao Huiying even consciously chose realism as the most direct and most easily understandable literary form to attract the widest readership. I will conclude with a few remarks regarding the developments of women's fiction in the 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st century.
Jana Benesova, PhD., Masaryk University, China Studies Seminar, lecturer
M.A. in Chinese and English Philology, Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic (2005). Obtained PhD at the National Chengchi Univesity in Taiwan, Department of Chinese Literature (2012). Research topics include contemporary Chinese and Taiwanese literature, especially women's literature and gender studies. Published PhD thesis: 《從「現實」到「寫實」──八○年代兩岸女性寫實小說之比較》(From “Reality” to “Realism”: A Comparative Study of the 1980s Realist Women's Fiction in Taiwan and Mainland China). Taipei: Xiuwei, 2015. Also translated numerous important Taiwanese writers into Czech, including Li Ang, Bai Xianyong, Huang Chunming, Ping Lu, Cai Sufen, Chen Yuhui, etc.
