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The present study focuses on the emergence of non-fiction literature and the resulting phenomena. It examines the interactions among non-fiction works within the Taiwanese literary institution by analyzing the award-winning non-fiction entries in the Taiwan Literature Awards. During the 2010s, the term "non-fiction" gained rapid popularity in Taiwan and became even more widely recognized after 2015. In addition, it garnered significant attention in discussions surrounding the Taiwan Literature Awards in 2019. Consequently, non-fiction has started to receive literary recognition due to market attention and incentivization, leading to the generation of interactions with other genres and cultural contexts. Thus, the crux of the discussion revolves around the literary revolution brought about by the non-fiction trend.
The present study examines the historical development of non-fiction literature in the 2010s by reviewing relevant literature from two perspectives: the discussions within literature-themed magazines and the recognition of non-fiction through literary awards. By analyzing these two aspects, the cultural progression can be categorized into distinct stages: the initial phase (2011), the nascent phase (2011-2014), the booming phase (2015-2018) and the transformative phase (2019-2023). Notably, two significant milestones emerged during this timeline. In 2015, the Nobel Literature Prize was awarded to Svetlana Alexievich, leading to the popularization of the term "non-fiction writing." Subsequently, in 2018, the Taiwan Literature Awards introduced revised guidelines, which accommodate a wider variety of literature, and this has provided increased cultural resources for the non-fiction genre, facilitating its inclusion within the literary institution. Consequently, the style and format of contemporary literature have undergone significant influence.
In order to examine the interactive dynamics between non-fiction works and the literary institution, this study focuses on four award-winning non-fiction works in the Taiwan Literature Awards: Annpo's After Disaster, Chuan-fen Zhang's Hooligan Wang Xin-Fu, Kaori Lai's The Love Before Dawn, and Mi Liao's There’s Something About My Brother. Employing narratological analysis, the study highlights the distinctiveness of After Disaster and Hooligan Wang Xin-Fu in terms of their literary techniques. These works effectively utilize the fictional writing style emphasized in non-fiction writing to accomplish their documentary objectives, thereby attaining literary recognition. Furthermore, by analyzing The Love Before Dawn and There’s Something About My Brother, it becomes evident that non-fiction writing is challenging established literary boundaries and norms. The former exemplifies the impact of the non-fiction trend on the literary environment, while the latter transcends genre boundaries. In conclusion, this paper employs the award-winning works of the Taiwan Literature Awards as examples to illustrate the literary transformations brought by the non-fiction trend, including the innovation of documentary writing techniques, the application of non-fictional approaches to the literary paradigm, and the consequential changes in the literary environment.
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