As Taiwan assumes an increasingly prominent place in global conversations about democracy, China–Taiwan relations, Indigenous rights, migration, environmental sustainability, and the future of the Indo-Pacific, understanding the island requires more than political analysis alone. The first volume of A Counter Literary History of Taiwan in the New Millennium, Taiwan in Contexts examines the historical, geographic, social, and ethical forces that have shaped contemporary Taiwan, while also rethinking how literature can be used to understand nations, communities, and cultural change. Rather than tracing the development of a literary canon, the volume uses literary analysis as a method for exploring Taiwan itself.

Rejecting conventional literary histories organized around chronology, authors, or schools, this innovative “counter literary history” explores six interconnected themes: geography, history, indigeneity, migration, justice, and environment. Pairing literary works with films, political events, public debates, social movements, and cultural activism, the contributors demonstrate how cultural narratives shape the ways societies understand territory, memory, identity, and belonging.

Readers encounter Taiwan as an archipelago shaped by maritime networks, Cold War frontiers, and cross-Strait connections, from Kinmen and Matsu to the “small three links” that transformed relations with China at the dawn of the new millennium. They explore the enduring metaphor of Taiwan as a “ghost island”; examine Indigenous struggles for recognition, cultural sovereignty, and historical redress; and follow migrants and multilingual communities whose experiences challenge conventional understandings of citizenship, language, and national identity. The volume also investigates transitional justice through theater and public memory while tracing environmental activism, agricultural movements, ecological consciousness, and oceanic imagination in contemporary Taiwan.

Featuring discussions of Wang Congwei’s The Repeating Island, Kevin Chen’s Ghost Town, Dadelavan Ibau’s Farewell, Eagle, Li Kotomi’s An Island Where Red Spider Lilies Bloom, the Party Theatre Group’s Father/Mother, Yang Ru-men’s activism, and Liao Hung-chi’s Drifting with the Kuroshio Current, the volume reveals the remarkable diversity of contemporary Taiwanese cultural expression.

Bringing together perspectives from Taiwan studies, East Asian studies, literary studies, Indigenous studies, migration studies, environmental humanities, geography, memory studies, and cultural history, A Counter Literary History of Taiwan in the New Millennium: Taiwan in Contexts offers a richly textured portrait of the forces that continue to shape Taiwan’s past, present, and future. Few books provide such a nuanced view of how territory, memory, justice, identity, and ecology intersect in contemporary Taiwan, revealing why the island has become a crucial site for understanding some of the defining political, cultural, and environmental questions of the twenty-first century.