EastAsian Fiction

Abstract

In recent decades, many East Asian novelists have made their names in the English‐speaking world. Works by Teresa Cha, Ha Jin, Kazuo Ishiguro, Timothy Mo, and others are often considered representative of the previously neglected voices of Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Ha Jin, for example, has written extensively on life within and outside China. HisWaiting(1999) andWar Trash(2004) both won the PEN/Faulkner Award;The Writer as Migrant(2008) offers revealing accounts of his literary career. Anchee Min, a survivor of the Cultural Revolution and, like Ha Jin, an emigrant to the US, has produced several narratives (RedAzalea, 1994;Becoming Madame Mao, 2001; andEmpress Orchid, 2004) that raised controversy for their portrayal of lesbian relationships or their sympathetic treatment of the lives of Jiang Ching and Empress Cixi. As an expatriate, Ha Jin is more frequently considered Asian American than East Asian, and it is unfortunate that twentieth‐century Asian literature most often catches the attention of Western readers when written in English, since “major” authors in Asian countries tend to write in their native languages. Indeed, when Eileen Zhang, one of China's leading fiction writers, tried in the 1970s to rewrite her novels in English, they met with a lukewarm reception. To fully appreciate fictions from East Asia as part of the emergent world literature, English‐language readers should read works in translation.