Asian American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology

by Shawn Wong

These brief anthologies of ethnic American literature are ideal for ethnic, multicultural and American literature courses. They are designed to introduce undergraduates to the rich but often neglected literary contributions of established and newer ethnic writers to American literature. Each text is organized chronologically by genre and represent a wide range of literature. An introduction provides an historical overview and a celebration of the diversity within each ethnic group. It also addresses the general literary concerns students are likely to encounter in their readings. A seperate thematic table of contents provides the instructor with more flexibility in the classroom.

Genres: Literature, Short Stories, Collections, Anthologies

462 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1995

Reviews

[Othy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather thick collection of all kinds of types of literature: non-fiction, fiction, poetry and a single piece of drama. The pieces included varied, showing many different views of how an Asian American sees (or saw) their lives in the United States, from angry reactionary pieces to calm and poetic tales. Those included represent many of the first Asian American writers, and the editor himself claims to be very instrumental in getting the whole discipline off the ground. Unfortunately, some of the pieces included aren't very good as art past allowing the reader to understand the "Asian American Experience," and so came across as somewhat boring and limited. Others, such as Toshio Mori's "1936," really dug deeper past a simple reaction to a true, human reflection of life. As a place to start, such as for students (indeed, I'm using this in my Asian-American Literature course), it is a very good jumping-off point to discover authors and as a broad overview of the literature.

As a final, though secondary note, the editing in the book is somewhat sub-par, as there are many mistakes in spelling and punctuation. Normally this would be a simple nuisance, but at times the authors write in dialect, and it is difficult to know whether or not the "mistakes" come from the authors themselves or the editors.

[Hannah Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a harder book to rate, simply because of the difference in my enjoying the stories yet not enjoying the anthology. I loved many of the stories and poems in this anthology, but there were a lot of misprinted things, a lot of spelling errors, and after speaking with a featured author it was clear that those mistakes had been made evident to the publisher who never cleared up the mistakes.
Besides those errors, this was an enjoyable anthology.

[Ava · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like some authors and not most. This is an important read though.