Abstract
Long, Ying-zong has been reproached for participating in the First Greater East Asia Writers'' Conference, but he had argued that his statement in the conference was only to be scripted like that of a parrot. The Japanese empire mobilized the writers politically during wartime; how did this phenomenon affect the writers'' literary activities? This essay refers to the reports and interviews which were in the magazines and newspapers at that time, as well as the participants'' postwar memoirs about the First Greater East Asia Writers'' Conference. After the cross-comparison of these materials, I piece together how Long, Ying-zong, the colonial writer, participated in the historical scene, and I will explain what this experience of visiting Japan meant to his literary career. As the representative of the ”outland” (外地) writers, Long, Ying-zong was grouped under the false and invented banner the ”Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” (大東亜共栄圏, Shinjitai). After returning to Taiwan, he presented at lectures and forums in various regions, participated in the discourse of the wartime cultural construction, and promoted the importance of the cultural enlightenment during wartime. However, he eventually made the above statements as a writer cautiously. Finally, I will examine the issue of ”integration of races”, one of the concepts of the First Greater East Asia Writers'' Conference, and see how it was practiced in the fictional works. Through the ”cross-border” writing of the Taiwanese writers, the falseness of the ”Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” is highlighted.