Asian American short story writers : an A-to-Z guide /

Only in the last 25 years has Asian American literature gained recognition as an autonomous component of American literature. This guide and its companion volumes covering segments of ethnic literature are therefore welcome, if not overdue. For each of 49 authors, the work supplies a chapter containing a biography, major works and themes, critical reception, and bibliography, the latter subdivided into works by and about the author. Like any such work, the principal question is whom to include; most of the writers covered are well known, and many have won major literary awards or other national or international recognition. Writers like Laurence Michael Yep and Yoshiko Uchida are not included, perhaps in anticipation of another volume on Asian American authors of children's and young adult works. Guiyou Huang, who edited two of the other volumes in this series, has enrolled graduate students and junior faculty, who contribute chapters both well written and well researched. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General and specialized reference collections. D. Liestman Florida Gulf Coast University

Covering 49 Asian American writers, each entry in this volume includes sections titled "Biography," "Major Works and Themes," "Critical Reception," and "Bibliography." The bibliography lists studies of and works by the author--novels, poetry collections, interviews, and, of course, short story collections. Studies include book reviews and journal articles. Most articles are three to five pages long, with the most text devoted to themes and critical reception. For example, the article on Hain is five and one-half pages and includes a two-paragraph biography, a one-page bibliography, a two-and-one-half-page overview ofin's three short story collections, and a one-and-one-half-page survey of critiques and awards. Each entry is signed. Associate professors and Ph.D. candidates comprise the majority of the 30 contributors. Other than the fact that they reside in the U.S. or Canada, the criteria for selecting the authors who are covered are unclear. Of the 25 female and 24 male writers, 2 were born in the nineteenth century--Sui Sin Far and Winnifred Eaton. The youngest is Evelyn Lau (1971-). Editor Huang, currently chairs the English Department aturtzdown University of Pennsylvania. Huang's prior editing experience includes a work on Asian American poets and another on Asian American autobiographers. Students should find this resource easy-to-use. One can utilize the table of contents, thumb through the alphabetically arranged articles, or use the index. Additional features include an introductory 19-page essay on the Asian American short story examining the works of Sui Sin Far, Hisaye Yamamoto, and Oscar Penaranda. Following the entries, a bibliography provides a list of anthologies, secondary sources, and relevant periodicals. The reference source Asian American Literature: Reviews and Criticism of Works by American Writers of Asian Descent (Gale, 1999) is similar but covers a smaller number of short story writers. Recommended for high-school, public, and academic libraries. -- RBB Copyright 2004 Booklist

This first reference of its kind completes a series of sourcebooks dealing with 20th-century Asian American writers (previous titles focused on novelists, memoirists, poets, and playwrights). The text covers 49 well-known short story writers (e.g., Frank Chin, Gish Jen, Ha Jin, Chang-rae Lee, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, and Bharati Mukherjee) but, regrettably, omits some notable ones-e.g., Amy Tan, who is best known as a novelist but has also written short stories. The entries, all written by experts in the field, include biographies, discussions of major works and themes, balanced citations of appraisals as well as critical reviews, and useful bibliographies. Since short stories are scattered over time and featured in a variety of publications, making them less accessible, the real value of this sourcebook lies in the bibliographical material. Huang (English, Kutztown Univ. of Pennsylvania) must have made some hard choices but should be commended for contributing an interesting introduction that offers a close examination of the Asian American short story. Recommended for all libraries, especially those that already own the previous titles.-Kitty Chen Dean, Nassau Community Coll., Garden City, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.