Since the 1990s, a new cohort of Asian American writers has garnered critical and popular attention. Many of its members are the children of Asians who came to the United States after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 lifted long-standing restrictions on immigration. This new generation encompasses writers as diverse as the graphic novelists Adrian Tomine and Gene Luen Yang, the short story writer Nam Le, and the poet Cathy Park Hong. Having scrutinized more than one hundred works by emerging Asian American authors and having interviewed several of these writers, Min Hyoung Song argues that collectively, these works push against existing ways of thinking about race, even as they demonstrate how race can facilitate creativity. Some of the writers eschew their identification as ethnic writers, while others embrace it as a means of tackling the uncertainty that many people feel about the near future. In the literature that they create, a number of the writers that Song discusses take on pressing contemporary matters such as demographic change, environmental catastrophe, and the widespread sense that the United States is in national decline.
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A new generation of Asian American writers has garnered critical and popular attention since the 1990s. Min Hyoung Song argues that their diverse work pushes against existing ways of thinking about race.
Les mer
Introduction. "We All Have Our Reasons" 1 Part I. Impositions of Form 1. Theorizing Expectations 29 2. The Trope of the Lost Manuscript 59 3. Not Ethnic Literature 81 4. American Personhood 104 Part II. Lines of Flight 5. Comics and the Changing Meaning of Race 127 6. Allegory and the Child in Jhumpa Lahiri's Fiction 152 7. Becoming Planetary 179 8. Desert–Orient–Nomad 197 Conclusion. World-Making 220 Acknowledgments 239 Appendix. Contemporary Asian American Literature 101 241 Notes 245 Works Cited 261 Index 271
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"In this work of celebration and criticism, Min Hyoung Song charts a new path forward for engaging the latest—and the most successful—wave of Asian American literature. In addition to offering some amazing literary criticism and analysis, Song interviews some of today's most important Asian American writers to discuss their work and life. The resulting book is in equal measure a stunning work of literary criticism and a fascinating social commentary on how Asian American literature is produced and read."—Edward J. W. Park, coauthor of Probationary Americans: Contemporary Immigration Policies and the Shaping of Asian American Communities
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Having scrutinized more than 100 works by emerging Asian American authors and interviewed several of them, Min Hyoung Song argues that collectively, their works push against existing ways of thinking about race, even as they demonstrate how race can facilitate creativity.
Les mer

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780822354512
Publisert
2013-04-15
Utgiver
Vendor
Duke University Press
Vekt
413 gr
Aldersnivå
UU, UP, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
296

Forfatter

Om bidragsyterne

Min Hyoung Song is Associate Professor of English at Boston College. He is the author of Strange Future: Pessimism and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, also published by Duke University Press, and editor of the Journal of Asian American Studies.