Identity, Home and Writing Elsewhere

Identity, Home and Writing Elsewhere in Contemporary Chinese Diaspora Poetry (Bloomsbury 2023)

An exploration of the burgeoning field of Anglophone Asian diaspora poetry, this book draws on the thematic concerns of Hong Kong, Asian-American and British Asian poets from the wider Chinese or East Asian diasporic culture to offer a transnational understanding of the complex notions of home, displacement and race in a globalised world.

Located within current discourse surrounding Asian poetry, postcolonial and migrant writing, and bridging the fields of literary and cultural criticism with author interviews, this book provides close readings on established and emerging Chinese diasporic poets’ work by incorporating the writers’ own reflections on their craft through interviews with some of those featured. In doing so, Jennifer Wong explores the usefulness and limitations of existing labels and categories in reading the works of selected poets from specific racial, socio-cultural, linguistic environments and gender backgrounds, including Bei Dao, Li-Young Lee, Marilyn Chin, Hannah Lowe and Sarah Howe, Nina Mingya Powles and Mary Jean Chan. Incorporating scholarship from both the East and the West, Wong demonstrates how these poets’ experimentation with poetic language and forms serve to challenge the changing notions of homeland, family, history and identity, offering new evaluations of contemporary diasporic voices.

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By juxtaposing critical discussions of a range of poets with a study of the concept of diaspora and an account of Chinese migrations, Jennifer Wong offers here a refreshingly original curation of materials that will be of interest to scholars and general readers alike. An impressive and commendable undertaking.”  Prof Rey Chow, Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, Duke University

Jennifer Wong’s innovative new study of Anglophone Asian diasporic poetry explores how notions of home, race, identity, and belonging are imaginatively made and re-made in the work of poets whose lives and verse traverse oceans and languages. Fusing literary commentary with in-depth interviews with practicing poets, this lucid and elegant book straddles criticism and creativity in illuminating ways, showing how the voices of living poets rightly belong in scholarly treatments of their work. This book a must-read for any scholar or student keen to understand the relationship between poetic form and experiences of migration, exile, and multiculturalism. – Prof Margaret Hillenbrand, Professor of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, University of Oxford

Table of Contents

Preface by Shirley Lim / Introduction: Understanding concepts of home, identity and diaspora Chapter 1 – Bei Dao: A Sinophone diasporic poet and the poetic language of exile Chapter 2 – Li-Young Lee: Exile, nostalgia and Oriental spirituality Chapter 3 – Marilyn Chin’s feminist poetics of protest Chapter 4 – Hannah Lowe: Hybridity, multicultural heritage and class Chapter 5 – Sarah Howe: Pilgrimage, Chinoiserie and translated identities Chapter 6 – Race, sexuality and family in the poetry of Mary Jean Chan Chapter 7 – Anglophone Chinese diaspora poetry in the UK: A new generation Chapter 8 – Anglophone poetry in Hong Kong: Cosmopolitanism and a split notion of home / Epilogue / Appendix 1 & 2 (Interviews and biographies)