Book contents
- The Cambridge History ofAsian American Literature
- The Cambridge History of Asian American Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Early Forms of Expression to the Start of the Twentieth Century
- Part II The Exclusion Era, World War II, and the Immediate Postwar Era
- 5 Indian Diasporic Autobiography: New Nations and New Selves
- 6 Koreans in Exile: Younghill Kang and Richard E. Kim
- 7 Filipino and Filipina Voices
- 8 Chinatown Life as Contested Terrain: H. T. Tsiang, Jade Snow Wong, and C. Y. Lee
- 9 Coded Critiques: Japanese American Incarceration Literature
- 10 Asian American Short Fiction and the Contingencies of Form, 1930s–1960s
- 11 The Chicago School and the Sociological Imagination
- Part III The Asian American Movement
- Part IV Canons
- Part V Post-1965 and the Twenty-First Century
- Part VI Twenty-First Century: 9/11, Empire, and Other Challenges to Literature
- Bibliography
- Index
10 - Asian American Short Fiction and the Contingencies of Form, 1930s–1960s
from Part II - The Exclusion Era, World War II, and the Immediate Postwar Era
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2015
By
Book contents
- The Cambridge History ofAsian American Literature
- The Cambridge History of Asian American Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Early Forms of Expression to the Start of the Twentieth Century
- Part II The Exclusion Era, World War II, and the Immediate Postwar Era
- 5 Indian Diasporic Autobiography: New Nations and New Selves
- 6 Koreans in Exile: Younghill Kang and Richard E. Kim
- 7 Filipino and Filipina Voices
- 8 Chinatown Life as Contested Terrain: H. T. Tsiang, Jade Snow Wong, and C. Y. Lee
- 9 Coded Critiques: Japanese American Incarceration Literature
- 10 Asian American Short Fiction and the Contingencies of Form, 1930s–1960s
- 11 The Chicago School and the Sociological Imagination
- Part III The Asian American Movement
- Part IV Canons
- Part V Post-1965 and the Twenty-First Century
- Part VI Twenty-First Century: 9/11, Empire, and Other Challenges to Literature
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The period spanning the 1930s to the 1960s is pivotal to Asian American literary history in that it witnessed both the early development of the Asian American novel and a phenomenal growth of Asian American short fiction. This chapter describes the work of Asian American writers, Toshio Mori, Hisaye Yamamoto, Bienvenido N. Santos and Carlos Bulosan. Mori and Yamamoto participated in ethnic cultural codification through portrayals of Japanese immigrant life from Nisei perspectives. The Chauvinist is perhaps the most speculative of Mori's stories about prewar Japanese immigrant life. Yamamoto's Yoneko's Earthquake is a work widely celebrated for its multiple layers of meaning and rich symbolism. Scent of Apples is paradigmatic of Santos's fictional construction of the predicament facing Filipino immigrants. Short fiction legitimizes small-scale disruption of the patterns of continuity closely associated with the novel form, by engaging with major positions about the latter's realist premises and actual functions.
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- Information
- The Cambridge History of Asian American Literature , pp. 187 - 202Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015