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Paper short abstract

This paper examines nature’s role in co-authored narratives in literary museums, focusing on Long Ying-Zong’s works(Taiwan). It explores how nature is presented and re-created in multi-voiced storytelling, shaping meanings and fostering interactions among texts, environments, and participants.

Paper long abstract

Long Ying-Zong (1911-1999) was one of the few writers from Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule to receive a prestigious Japanese literary award. His award-winning work, "A Town with Papaya Trees", uses the sultry heat and fragrance of the South , symbolized by the tropical fruit papaya, as a metaphor for the self-identity and life struggles of the shrub people. As hi his other literary works, descriptions of the mountains and carious plants, natural light, shadow, color, and smells of his hometown often contain metaphors that connect the story’s axis or characters, with a duality of appearance.

In 2020, the Long Ying-Zong Literary Museum in Beipu, Taiwan, was established following restoration of historic sites. This allows literary texts and narratives to intersect and reinterpret reality. By incorporating various nature elements from literature, the Long Ying-Zong Literary Museum explores diverse narrative methods and practices, such as natural indigo dyeing, walking through the town and mountains depicted in literary landscapes, and utilizing different materials, to preserve and convey nature through the museum. For various participants, through the medium of the literary museum, nature is the cornerstone of extending culture and dialogue in a multi-layered narrative carrier.