Books that were banned in Taiwan during the White Terror era were displayed at the Seoul International Book Fair, which closed yesterday.
The Taipei International Book Exhibition Foundation contributed to the “Banned Books: Spirits from the Bamboo Grove” exhibition at the invitation of the fair, alongside publishers’ associations from Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and Turkey, as well as Seoul National University.
The chief planners of the Taiwanese content were publisher and former presidential adviser Rex How (郝明義), who is also the foundation’s managing supervisor, and Liao Wei-min (廖為民), who wrote The Story of Banned Books in Taiwan (台灣禁書的故事).
Photo courtesy of the Taipei International Book Exhibition Foundation
The organizations collaborated to display the formerly forbidden books to contextualize the history of literary censorship in Asia and to highlight the importance of freedom of the press, How said on Thursday.
Books on display were selected from the vast array of works proscribed during the White Terror era, or the period from 1949 to 1987 when the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government ruled via martial law, he said.
The selection was a cross-section of the government’s press censorship, he said.
The government suppressed works of communist literature, such as Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto, and books written by intellectuals who stayed in China after 1949, such as Lu Xun’s (魯迅) The True Story of Ah-Q (阿Q正傳) and Lao She’s (老社) Rickshaw Boy (駱駝祥子), he said.
The Legends of the Condor Heroes (射鵰英雄傳), a Wuxia novel — a genre of fiction about martial artists in ancient China — was banned because its author, Hong Konger Jin Yong (金庸), was suspected of having leftist sympathies and ties to Beijing, How said.
Books whose subject matter touched upon the 228 Massacre or the Japanese colonial era were banned, such as Su Ben’s (史明) Taiwan’s 400 Year History (台灣人四百年史), or books written by liberals who the government persecuted, including Lei Chen (雷震) and Yin Hai-kuang (殷海光), he said.
Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son and successor Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) also banned books by people who they held grudges against, such as Bo Yang (柏楊) and Chiang Nan (江南), he said.
Li Ai’s (李敖) books were banned because he was known for spurning authority, while An Anthology of Dangwai Literature (黨外文選) by Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文) and Chen Chu (陳菊) was banned for being political literature originating from outside the KMT, he said.
The government also suppressed works deemed to challenge traditional sexual mores, such as sociologist Zhang Jingsheng’s (張競生) A History of Sex (性史) and Kuo Liang-hui’s (郭良蕙) The Locked Heart (心鎖), he said.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
China has reserved offshore airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts that are usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Sunday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. The alerts, known as notice to air missions (NOTAMs), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert
RSS