Moonie and Mei Ling are looked after by their grandmother, an indomitable matriarch, ruthless manager of 'The Double Happiness' restaurant and fount of endless titbits of Chinese mythology. Feared and renowned in the neighbourhood - and stubbornly attached to the giant meat cleaver she keeps in her handbag - eccentric Grandma Wong weaves a magical world of surreal stories and ancient wisdom around her two wayward granddaughters. However, the girls' lives are also being drawn forward by the inexorable pace of assimilation and the ever-beckoning American dream, and as fascinated as they might be by Buddhist philosophy, they are also cool, hip American girls with straight-A grades and scores to settle - with the neighbourhood boys who tease them and with the unforgiving media, which tells them that they should look like Barbie dolls and not like Chinese girls.

In Diasporic Representations, author Pin-chia Feng examines the stratification of various diasporic subjectivities through close reading fiction by Chinese American women writers of different social and class backgrounds. Deploying a strategy of "attentive reading", Feng engages the intersecting issues of historicity, spatiality, and bodily imagination from diasporic and feminist perspectives to illuminate the dynamics of deterritorialization and reterritorialization in Chinese American novels in this transnational age. The authors studied include Diana Chang, Edith Eaton, Yan Geling, Nieh Hualing, Gish Jen, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Aimee Liu, Fae Myenne Ng, Sigrid Nunez, Han Suyin, and Amy Tan.

An anthology of Asian diasporic writers musing on the notion of “home.” “Bold and devastating . . . the very definition of reclamation.” —The International Examiner Asian diasporic writers imagine “home” in the twenty-first century through an array of fiction, memoir, and poetry. Both urgent and meditative, this anthology moves beyond the model-minority myth and showcases the singular intimacies of individuals figuring out what it means to belong. “The notion of home has always been elusive. But as evidenced in these stories, poems, and testaments, perhaps home is not so much a place, but a feeling one embodies. I read this book and see my people—see us—and feel, in our collective outsiderhood, at home.” —Ocean Vuong, New York Times-bestselling author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous “To be from nowhere is the state of Asian diaspora, but there is also a wild humor and imagination that comes from being underestimated, rarely counted, hardly seen. Here, we begin to draw the hopeful outlines of a collective history for those so disparate yet often lumped together.” —Jenny Zhang, author of My Baby First Birthday “Language allows for many homes, and perhaps the writers—and readers of the anthology too—will succeed in returning home, or finding a home, through these words.” —NPR.org “Effectively dismantling all sorts of stereotypes, Buchanan’s anthology gives voice to notions of identity, belonging and displacement that are much more vast, complex and textually rich than mere geography.” —Shelf Awareness “Revolutionary for all the iterations of ‘home’ it shows through fiction, poetry, and memoir, sure to provoke a full range of emotions to swoon and clutch in my chest.” —Literary Hub

When will American poetry and poetics stop viewing poetry by racialized persons as a secondary subject within the field? Dorothy J. Wang makes an impassioned case that now is the time. Thinking Its Presence calls for a radical rethinking of how American poetry is being read today, offering its own reading as a roadmap. While focusing on the work of five contemporary Asian American poets—Li-Young Lee, Marilyn Chin, John Yau, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and Pamela Lu—the book contends that aesthetic forms are inseparable from social, political, and historical contexts in the writing and reception of all poetry. Wang questions the tendency of critics and academics alike to occlude the role of race in their discussions of the American poetic tradition and casts a harsh light on the double standard they apply in reading poems by poets who are racial minorities. This is the first sustained study of the formal properties in Asian American poetry across a range of aesthetic styles, from traditional lyric to avant-garde. Wang argues with conviction that critics should read minority poetry with the same attention to language and form that they bring to their analyses of writing by white poets.

This impressive volume provides over 1,700 biographical entries on poets writing in English from 1910 to the present day, including T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and Carol Ann Duffy. Authoritative and accessible, it is a must-have for students of English and creative writing, as well as for anyone with an interest in poetry.

Providing comprehensive coverage of a variety of Asian American cultural forms, including folk tradition, literature, religion, education, politics, sports, and popular culture, this two-volume work is an ideal resource for students and general readers that reveals the historical, regional, and ethnic diversity within specific traditions. An invaluable reference for school and public libraries as well as academic libraries at colleges and universities, this two-volume encyclopedia provides comprehensive coverage of a variety of Asian American cultural forms that enables readers to understand the history, complexity, and contemporary practices in Asian American culture. The contributed entries address the diversity of a group comprising people with geographically discrete origins in the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, identifying the rich variations across the category of Asian American culture that are key to understanding specific cultural expressions while also pointing out some commonalities. Entries are organized alphabetically and cover topics in the arts; education and politics; family and community; gender and sexuality; history and immigration; holidays, festivals, and folk tradition; literature and culture; media, sports, and popular culture; and religion, belief, and spirituality. Entries also broadly cover Asian American origins and history, regional practices and traditions, contemporary culture, and art and other forms of shared expression. Accompanying sidebars throughout serve to highlight key individuals, major events, and significant artifacts and allow readers to better appreciate the Asian American experience.

“A terrific debut, full of energy and colour, as propulsive as a thriller.”—Guardian In this unforgettable debut novel about the pain, joy, and occasional beauty of childhood, two girls are set on an unimaginable path. Spoiled but emotionally neglected Gemma, who seems to have everything, and semi-feral Pauline, who has less than nothing, are two very different ten-year-old girls growing up in a tough Yorkshire town in the 1970s. Pauline longs for the simple luxuries of Gemma’s life: her neatly folded socks and her clean hair. Gemma, upset by her parents’ breakup, loses herself in fantasies of meeting the child television star Lallie Paluza. When Lallie shoots a movie in their hometown, Gemma and Pauline grab the chance for their wildest dreams to come true. But the film becomes a catalyst for the forces of the dysfunctional adult world and its impact on both girls as playground bullying escalates with terrible consequences.

"Steeped in the tradition of the Indian epic, yet modern and vastly entertaining." —The Times (London) In her fiction debut, Alice Albinia weaves a multithreaded epic tale that encompasses divine saga and familial discord and introduces an unforgettable heroine. Leela—alluring, taciturn, haunted—is moving from New York back to Delhi. Worldly and accomplished, she has been in self-imposed exile from India and her family for decades; twenty-two years earlier, her sister was seduced by the egotistical Vyasa, and the fallout from their relationship drove Leela away. Now an eminent Sanskrit scholar, Vyasa is preparing for his son’s marriage. But when Leela arrives for the wedding, she disrupts the careful choreography of the weekend, with its myriad attendees and their conflicting desires. Gleefully presiding over the drama is Ganesh—divine, elephant-headed scribe of the Mahabharata, India’s great epic. The family may think they have arranged the wedding for their own selfish ends, but according to Ganesh it is he who is directing events—in a bid to save Leela, his beloved heroine, from Vyasa. As the weekend progresses, secret online personas, maternal identities, and poetic authorships are all revealed; boundaries both religious and continental are crossed; and families are ripped apart and brought back together in this vibrant and brilliant celebration of family, love, and storytelling.

"A first-rate example of a literary historical novel." —Regan Upshaw, San Francisco Chronicle In his "Byron trilogy," Benjamin Markovits lovingly reinvents the nineteenth-century novel, true to its perfect prose, penetrating insight, and simmering passions. Inspired by the actual biography of Lord Byron—the greatest literary figure and most notorious sex symbol of his age—Markovits re-imagines Byron’s marriage to the capable, intellectual, and tormented Annabella and the scandal that broke open their lives and riveted the world around them: Byron’s incestuous relationship with his impetuous half-sister, Gus. Their very different understandings of love and one’s obligations to society lead them all—and the reader—headlong to a devastating conclusion.

“An absorbing, generous, ravishing book by a high priestess of you-have-to-read-this prose." —Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild Pam Houston, an "early master of the art of rendering fiercely independent, brilliant women in love with the wrong men" (Sarah Norris, Barnes & Noble Review), delivers a novel that whisks us from one breathtaking precipice to the next. Along the way, we unravel the story of Pam (a character not unlike the author), a fearless traveler aiming to leave her metaphorical baggage behind as she seeks a comfort zone in the air. With the help of a loyal cast of friends, body workers, and a new partner who helps her to be at home, she finally finds something like ground under her feet.