Through an Indigenous Lens: Syaman Rapongan’s Rewriting of Oceanic Taiwan

This chapter examines oceanic discourse in Taiwan literature with a focus on Syaman Rapongan (夏曼·藍波安), whose seafaring writing diversifies Taiwan’s land-centered Indigenous literature and goes beyond the political arena of the island-state and the long-established cross-Strait dynamic. This chapter is divided into two parts. The first part tackles the overlapping of Taiwan’s Indigenous literature and marine literature with an extensive survey of Rapongan’s literary journey as an Indigenous writer, his cultural resistance against the island-state, and his love of the ocean. The second part provides a critical analysis of Rapongan’s Floating Dreams in the Ocean (大海浮夢, 2014) and Mata nu Wawa (大海之眼, 2018). Rapongan provides a deconstructive critique of the Han Chinese-dominated ideology in Taiwan and employs the Pacific Ocean as an expansive, all-encompassing entity across geographical, racial, ethnic, and national boundaries. Rapongan’s writing strategy sheds light on the heated discussions of the reproduction of Taiwan’s Indigeneity in response to the oceanic discourse of Taiwan. Through an Indigenous lens, Rapongan’s works help reshape Taiwan literature and connect Taiwan with the global tribal communities via ocean passages.