Mimesis and Mediation of Reality: On the Translation, Practices and Theorization of Nonfiction in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Huan-Yi Chang, 張桓溢
• Other Authors: 蘇碩斌
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/ba8469

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 台灣文學研究所 === 107 === Taiwan''s recently surging nonfiction writing has become a popular form of literature, not only because it has aroused great attention on the publishing market, but even more through the affirmation of academia and the prizes awarded by official institutions. However, what does the term “nonfiction” refer to in Taiwan? How and why was it produced? Moreover, how did “nonfiction” come to intertwine with contemporary Taiwan''s cultural context within different processes of the practice? These questions are still awaiting historical reflection and theories for articulation. Thus, following diachronic and synchronic axes, I attempt to provide a theoretical perspective on nonfiction writing in Taiwan, on the basis of an exploration of the context of its translation and the circumstances of the practice, to push the understanding of nonfiction a little further. The argument of this thesis therefore includes three main aspects: first, through a historical retrospect of the formation of “nonfiction” as a literary genre, this thesis elaborates how the concept of “nonfiction” was constructed in the cultural field of the United States and how it interrelated with the process of the development of reportage in Taiwan, and points out how nonfiction could constitute a new paradigm of factual writing in Taiwan owing to the forces of translation and adoption. Second, using the theoretical perspective of narratology, this thesis analyzes how agents with backgrounds in anthropology, journalism and historiography, in following the major trend of “attracting public attention”, all appropriate literary devices to re-organize and arrange original materials, thereby carrying out nonfiction writing with different concerns and effects. Third, returning to the basic proposition of “What is nonfiction?”, this thesis builds on Ricoeur’s threefold mimesis model, to establish the epistemological and ontological foundations of nonfiction to assert its ethical potential. To articulate a theory of nonfiction does not mean to create an ultimate formula for anchoring or evaluating nonfiction. Instead, from the radical point of view it opens up, what I propose to demonstrate, is a new possibility for considering an ethics of literature that reflects the ongoing debate over “fact and fiction” in Taiwan literature.