A high percentage of colonial Taiwanese literary works during the lateTaishōperiod to the Shōwa period (1920–1946) was written in Japanese. To writein Japanese was not only a promising way to have works published in imperial Ja-pan, but also provided a possible path for Taiwanese authors to reach a widerreadership among Japanophone communities in East Asia. However, in the im-mediate post-war years, the body of Japanophone Taiwanese literature was“tornoff”from Taiwanese literary history in the name of“decolonization.”All publica-tions in Japanese were abolished in Taiwan from 1946, and it was not until the lift-ing of the thirty-eight-year period of martial law that Japanophone Taiwanese lit-erature was finally reintroduced to post-war Taiwanese generations in Chinesetranslation. This article will tackle the issues of how Japanophone Taiwanese lit-erature was“translated back”into Chinese in order to reflect“authentic”Taiwa-nese culture. The translations of the Taiwanese writer Nao Weng’s works will beused as examples, as his modernist literary representation is particularly worthyof scrutiny and highly challenging for translators to render“faithfully.
