Taiwanese Face, Chinese Masks. Yang Mu and His Postcolonial Poetry - Wen-chi Li

Taiwanese Face, Chinese Masks offers a groundbreaking study of the acclaimed Taiwanese poet Yang Mu, whose work challenges dominant narratives of identity, language, and power. Focusing on the decades between the White Terror and Taiwan's democratization, this book explores how Yang Mu used Chinese literary forms to express local resistance, cultural hybridity, and historical memory. Drawing on postcolonial theory and close textual analysis, it examines Yang's poetic strategies-including ambivalence, mimicry, and minor narrative-as ways of navigating and subverting the Kuomintang's Sinocentric discourse.

Situating his work within Taiwan's shifting political and cultural landscape, Taiwanese Face, Chinese Masks reveals how literature can register collective trauma while imagining alternative futures. This study contributes to Taiwan studies, Sinophone literary criticism, and postcolonial thought by illuminating how one poet forged a distinctive voice that is both deeply rooted and globally resonant. A vital resource for scholars, students, and readers interested in poetry, politics, and identity in East Asia.