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 - Author Interviews Appendix 2 - Biographies of Poets Discussed Bibliography Index

Promotional Information

An exploration of home and identity within contemporary Anglophone Chinese diaspora poetry that combines interviews with leading poets about their craft with close readings and critical analysis of their work.

About the Author

Jennifer Wong was born and grew up in Hong Kong, and is now based in the UK. She is Associate Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, UK, and a visiting humanities fellow at Oxford University’s TORCH in 2022. She has three poetry collections published including Letters Home (2020), which was named the Wild Card Choice by Poetry Book Society.

Reviews

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.
*Margaret Hillenbrand, Professor of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, University of Oxford, UK*

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.
*Rey Chow, Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, Duke University, USA*

This is an important book about the contemporary moment in Chinese diasporic poetry. The focus on identity is especially timely in its engagement with the Chinese diasporic experience.
*Eddie Tay, Associate Professor, Department of English, Chinese University of Hong Kong*