This book is a ground-breaking transnational study of representations of the environment in Asian American literature. Extending and renewing Asian American studies and ecocriticism by drawing the two fields into deeper dialogue, it brings Asian American writers to the center of ecocritical studies. This collection demonstrates the distinctiveness of Asian American writers' positions on topics of major concern today: environmental justice, identity and the land, war environments, consumption, urban environments, and the environment and creativity. Represented authors include Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ruth Ozeki, Ha Jin, Fae Myenne Ng, Le Ly Hayslip, Lan Cao, Mitsuye Yamada, Lawson Fusao Inada, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Milton Murayama, Don Lee, and Hisaye Yamamoto. These writers provide a range of perspectives on the historical, social, psychological, economic, philosophical, and aesthetic responses of Asian Americans to the environment conceived in relation to labor, racism, immigration, domesticity, global capitalism, relocation, pollution, violence, and religion. Contributors apply a diversity of critical frameworks, including critical radical race studies, counter-memory studies, ecofeminism, and geomantic criticism. The book presents a compelling and timely "green" perspective through which to understand key works of Asian American literature and leads the field of ecocriticism into neglected terrain.

This book is a ground-breaking transnational study of representations of the environment in Asian American literature. Extending and renewing Asian American studies and ecocriticism by drawing the two fields into deeper dialogue, it brings Asian American writers to the center of ecocritical studies. This collection demonstrates the distinctiveness of Asian American writers positions on topics of major concern today: environmental justice, identity and the land, war environments, consumption, urban environments, and the environment and creativity. Represented authors include Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ruth Ozeki, Ha Jin, Fae Myenne Ng, Le Ly Hayslip, Lan Cao, Mitsuye Yamada, Lawson Fusao Inada, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Milton Murayama, Don Lee, Mae Myenne Ng, and Hisaye Yamamoto. These writers provide a range of perspectives on the historical, social, psychological, economic, philosophical, and aesthetic responses of Asian Americans to the environment conceived in relation to labor, racism, immigration, domesticity, global capitalism, relocation, pollution, violence, and religion. Contributors apply a diversity of critical frameworks, including critical radical race studies, counter-memory studies, ecofeminism, and geomantic criticism. The book presents a compelling and timely "green" perspective through which to understand key works of Asian American literature and leads the field of ecocriticism into neglected terrain."

This is the most comprehensive study to date of Amy Tan's work. It offers close readings of her texts in the context of broader debates about the representation of identity, history and reality. In contrast with Tan's own American-born narrators, and mainstream critics, Bella Adams's study looks beyond the stereotypes which appear in Tan's books, and explores the ways in which Chinese immigrants and their American relatives struggle to understand each others 'best qualities' via the Chinese tradition of the 'talk story'. She emphasises Tan's American narrators' process of becoming Chinese and discovering 'real China', and the significance of the ironic staging of these moments. Students will find this study both accessible and probing, and scholars will welcome its contribution to our understanding of a significant figure in contemporary literature. -- .

This critical study of Asian American literature discusses work by internationally successful writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, Bharati Mukherjee, Gish Jen, Chang-Rae Lee and Amitav Ghosh, and situates them in a range of literary-cultural contexts.

The focus of the book is on twentieth-century writing, particularly from the 1970s onwards, but it also traces the historical development of Asian American literature and discusses important earlier writers. Four central themes in Asian American culture are covered: beginning Asian American literature; ambassadorial literature; culture wars; and heterogeneity, hybridity, multiplicity. Each chapter offers a broad discussion of writers, concepts and approaches with case studies of key texts. Particular emphasis is placed on the critical reception of these writers, as they contribute to major debates in and around Asian American Studies. Works by Asian American writers are considered in relation to transatlantic literature, postcolonial theory, feminism and postmodernism.

Key features

*The first readily available introductory guide to Asian American literature.

*Discusses a representative range of Asian American literature, providing a sense of the diversity of the field and of its key themes and modes of writing.

*Links close reading of key texts with critical and theoretical approaches to Asian American literature.

*Encourages reflection on questions of literary value, canonicity and the scope and purpose of literary studies.