Introduction to Chinese American literature: Amy Tan phenomenon

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/1728-242X.2020.26.48-54

Abstract

The paper deals with Chinese American literature that is reviewed from the perspective of new theories of post-ethnicity, transnationalism, transculturalism. It is argued that in the context of globalization the markers of ethnicity and exoticism are being replaced by a new understanding of this aesthetic phenomenon. Though widely read and discussed in the world, Amy Tan's writings that combine Chinese and American images remain rather unknown for a Ukrainian reader. This paper considers the Chinese American discourse as an integrant part of Amy Tan's bicultural novels. From a broad philological perspective, involving West / East culture, literature, philosophy, history, this paper highlights the mechanisms of literary representation and identity specificity in the interplay of constructed Chinese American images in Amy Tan's six novels: "The Joy Luck Club" (1989), "The Kitchen God's Wife" (1991), "The Hundred Secret Senses" (1995), "The Bonesetter's Daughter" (2001), "Saving Fish from Drowning" (2005), "The Valley of Amazement" (2013). The emphasis is laid on the artistic mechanism of destereotypization, and synthesis of various cultural images and identities in portraying the American Chineseness. The research is conducted with reference both to cultural, historical contextualization in the study of Chinese American images as dynamic results of cultural interaction. The paper reveals the multiple dimensions of Chinese American identity through unveiling such categories as "Chineseness", "American Chineseness", "Americanness", involving cross-cultural intertextuality and narrative intermediality. In the paper "Chineseness" is viewed as a global, transnational cultural phenomenon.