President Chen Shui-bian (
The five honored writers were Bo Yang(柏楊), Chung Chao-cheng (鍾肇政), Yeh Shih-tao (葉石濤), Chi-chun (琦君) and Chi Pang-yuan (齊邦媛).
PHOTO: CNA
Speaking on behalf of the honored recipients, Bo Yang said the award signifies Taiwan's evolution to a liberal democracy.
"Now is a brand new era in Taiwan," said the 85-year-old human rights activist and writer who had been put behind bars for almost 10 years for writing critiques of the the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime during the martial law era.
Bo Yang , whose original name was Kuo Yi-dong (
"Today the government recognizes our literary creations as an integral part of a liberal country, but also that we will never be persecuted again," Bo Yang said at the award ceremony which took place at the Presidential Office.
Bo Yang's experience as a political prisoner prompted him to become a life-long human rights advocate. He is also the founder of the Amnesty International's Taiwan Chapter.
Bo Yang has produced more than 100 works, including essays, novels, historical accounts and poetry since beginning his writing career in the 1950s. In his most famous book, The Ugly Chinaman (醜陋的中國人), Bo Yang likens China to a "soy-vat culture" to describe the stagnation process of the vat and draws a comparison with the centuries of stagnation that took place in Chinese society. In the book, Bo Yang admonishes the Chinese for imitating the past rather than looking toward the future.
Eighty-year-old novelist Chung is best known as the nation's prominent Hakka fiction writer and was the harbinger of the Taiwanese literature movement which came about in 1950.
Chung has written 22 novels which capture the motif of Taiwanese consciousness and self-identity during the Japanese occupation, and has dedicated his life to promoting Taiwanese literature, known as "native literature" (
Yeh Shih-tao (
Yeh's most influential work, however, is probably his History of Taiwanese Literature (
Chi-chun is known for her novels and prose rooted in traditional Chinese culture, and Chi Pang-yuan has been a respected literary commentator and has translated many English literary works into Mandarin.
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