Fierce, raw, and unapologetic, Janice Mirikitani’s poetry and prose are as vibrant and resonant today as when these two collections were first published in 1978 and 1987. Now back in print in one volume, Awake in the River and Shedding Silence epitomizes Mirikitani’s singular voice—one that is brash, sexual, politically outspoken, and unconcerned with pandering to mainstream audiences. An influential artist and activist, Mirikitani has advanced the causes of women of color feminisms, global anti-imperialism, and Afro-Asian solidarity for more than fifty years. Her writings confront sexualized violence, anti-Asian racism, the intergenerational trauma of incarceration, the dangers of passivity, and internalized oppression, while also illuminating the power of awakening from silence and fighting for justice. Connecting Japanese American discrimination with broader struggles from the local to the global, Awake in the River and Shedding Silence showcases how the renowned poet found power in speaking out.

Fierce, raw, and unapologetic, Janice Mirikitani's poetry and prose are as vibrant and resonant today as when these two collections were first published in 1978 and 1987. Now back in print in one volume, Awake in the River and Shedding Silence epitomizes Mirikitani's singular voice-one that is brash, sexual, politically outspoken, and unconcerned with pandering to mainstream audiences. An influential artist and activist, Mirikitani has advanced the causes of women of color feminisms, global anti-imperialism, and Afro-Asian solidarity for more than fifty years. Her writings confront sexualized violence, anti-Asian racism, the intergenerational trauma of incarceration, the dangers of passivity, and internalized oppression, while also illuminating the power of awakening from silence and fighting for justice. Connecting Japanese American discrimination with broader struggles from the local to the global, Awake in the River and Shedding Silence showcases how the renowned poet found power in speaking out.

In Inhuman Citizenship, Juliana Chang claims that literary representations of Asian American domesticity may be understood as symptoms of America's relationship to its national fantasies and to the "jouissance"-a Lacanian term signifying a violent yet euphoric shattering of the self-that both overhangs and underlies those fantasies. In the national imaginary, according to Chang, racial subjects are often perceived as the source of jouissance, which they supposedly embody through their excesses of violence, sexuality, anger, and ecstasy-excesses that threaten to overwhelm the social order. To examine her argument that racism ascribes too much, rather than a lack of, humanity, Chang analyzes domestic accounts by Asian American writers, including Fae Myenne Ng's Bone, Brian Ascalon Roley's American Son, Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker, and Suki Kim's The Interpreter. Employing careful reading and Lacanian psychoanalysis, Chang finds sites of excess and shock: they are not just narratives of trauma; they produce trauma as well. They render Asian Americans as not only the objects but also the vehicles and agents of inhuman suffering. And, claims Chang, these novels disturb yet strangely exhilarate the reader through characters who are objects of racism and yet inhumanly enjoy their suffering and the suffering of others. Through a detailed investigation of "family business" in works of Asian American life, Chang shows that by identifying with the nation's psychic disturbance, Asian American characters ethically assume responsibility for a national unconscious that is all too often disclaimed.