The National Museum of Taiwan Literature (Chinese: 國立臺灣文學館; pinyin: Guólì Táiwān Wénxuéguǎn; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Kok-ka Tâi-oân Bûn-ha̍k-koán) is a museum located in Tainan City, Taiwan. It opened in 2003. The museum researches, catalogs, preserves, and exhibits literary artifacts. As part of its multilingual, multi-ethnic focus, it holds a large collection of local works in Taiwanese, Japanese, Mandarin, and Classical Chinese.
It was planned as a national-level organization to fill in a long-perceived gap in how the Republic of China's institutions had handled the island's literature as a field of academic inquiry and popular discourse. The Council for Cultural Affairs under the Executive Yuan set up the initial planning office.
Tainan was chosen for its historical significance as a cultural center. The museum is housed in the former Tainan City Hall, itself a national historical monument.
During Japanese rule the building was a government building of the former Tainan Prefecture.
Famous quotes containing the words national, museum and/or literature:
“Let him [the President] once win the admiration and confidence of the country, and no other single force can withstand him, no combination of forces will easily overpower him.... If he rightly interpret the national thought and boldly insist upon it, he is irresistible; and the country never feels the zest of action so much as when the President is of such insight and caliber.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“[A] Dada exhibition. Another one! What’s the matter with everyone wanting to make a museum piece out of Dada? Dada was a bomb ... can you imagine anyone, around half a century after a bomb explodes, wanting to collect the pieces, sticking it together and displaying it?”
—Max Ernst (1891–1976)
“Just as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literature cannot rise above the moral level of the social conditions of the people from whom it derives its inspiration.”
—James Connolly (1870–1916)