China fictions, English language : literary essays in diaspora, memory, story / edited by A. Robert Lee.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Lee, A. Robert, 1941-

Series:

Text (Rodopi (Firm)) ; 54.

Text, 0927-5754 ; 54

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--Chinese American authors--History and criticism.

American literature.

English literature--Christian authors--History and criticism.

English literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (351 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Rodopi, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The world is anything but unfamiliar with diaspora: Jewish, African, Armenian, Roma-Gipsy, Filipino/a, Tamil, Irish or Italian, even Japanese. But few have carried so global a resonance as that of China. What, then, of literary-cultural expression, the huge body of fiction which has addressed itself to that plurality of lives and geographies and which has come to be known as “After China”? This collection of essays offers bearings on those written in English, and in which both memory and story are central, spanning the USA to Australia, Canada to the UK, Hong Kong to Singapore, with yet others of more transnational nature. This collection opens with a reprise of woman-authored Chinese American fiction using Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan as departure points. In turn follow readings of the oeuvres of Tan and Frank Chin. A comparative essay takes up novels by Canadian, American and Australian authors from the perspective of migrancy as fracture. Chinese Canada comes into view in accounts of SKY Lee, Wayson Choy, Evelyn Lau and Larissa Lai. Australia under Chinese literary auspices is given a comparative mapping through the fiction of Brian Castro and Ouyang Yu. The English language “China fiction” of Singapore and Hong Kong is located in essays centred, respectively, on Martin Booth and Po Wah Lam, and Hwee Hwee Tan and Colin Cheong. The collection rounds out with portraits of Timothy Mo as British transnational author, a selection of contextual Chinese British stories and art, and the phenomenon of “Chinese Chick Lit” novels. China Fictions/English Language will be of interest to readers drawn both to “After China” as diasporic literary heritage and comparative literature in general.

Contents:

Preliminary Material

Acknowledgements

China Fictions, After China Fictions

“The beginning is hers”: The Political and Literary Legacies of Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan / Helena Grice

Asymmetries: Loss and Forgiveness in the Novels of Amy Tan / Cynthia F. Wong

Bad Boy, Godfather, Storyteller: The China Fictions of Frank Chin / A. Robert Lee

Bearing The Diasporic Burden: Representations of Suicide in SKY Lee’s Disappearing Moon Café, Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone, and Hsu-Ming Teo’s Love and Vertigo / Deborah L. Madsen

Chinatown as Diaspora Space in SKY Lee’s Disappearing Moon Cafeand Wayson Choy’s The Jade Peony / Rocío G. Davis

Canadian Border Crossings: Evelyn Lau and Larissa Lai / Mary Condé

The Earth’s Revenge: Nature, Transfeminism and Diaspora in Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl / Nicholas Birns

Diaspora Beyond Millennium: Brian Castro, Ouyang Yu, and Chinese Australia / Nicholas Birns

Childhood and The Cultural Memory of Hong Kong: Martin Booth’s Gweiloand Po Wah Lam’s The Locust Hunter / Elaine Yee Lin Ho

Writing “The Global” in Singapore Anglophone Fiction: Language, Vision and Resonance in Hwee Hwee Tan’s Fiction / Robbie B.H. Goh

The Anxiety of Influences: Dis-Locating Authority, Culture and Identity in the Novels of Colin Cheong / Robbie B. H. Goh

The Shit Hits The Fan: Timothy Mo’s New World Disorder / Laura Hall

Contested Belongings: The Politics and Poetics of Making a Home in Britain / Diana Yeh

From China with Love: Chick Lit and The New Crossover Fiction / Wenche Ommundsen

Notes on Contributors.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

94-012-0548-5

1-4356-2714-8

OCLC:

649903311

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789401205481 DOI