From the “Taiwanese Dream” to an Alien Land: The Mainland Writer Zhang Yiwei’s Literary Narratives of Taiwan

Abstract

Mainland Chinese writers’ interest in Taiwan surged in the first decade of the twenty-first century after PRC citizens were allowed to travel and study in Taiwan, but Zhang Yiwei is the only writer who continuously published works about Taiwan for several years. Studying in Taiwan from 2010 to 2016, Zhang’s works demonstrate how a post-1980 writer’s cultural identity was informed by the changing cross-Strait relationship from the 1980s to the 2010s. This article examines Zhang Yiwei’s three Taiwan-related works, published in 2013, 2015, and 2016 respectively, arguing that even though Zhang avoids political issues, her narratives of the natural and cultural aspects of Taiwan contest both the PRC’s One-China principle and the young Chinese generation’s “Taiwanese dream.” This article contends that by defining herself as an outsider in Taiwan, her three works present a cross-Strait student migrant’s modification of cultural identity and reterritorialization of the concept of “China.”