Synopses & Reviews
Winner of the Gabrielle Roy Award for Canadian Criticism, 1997
The Chinese Buddist monk Hoei-shin may have come to the west coast of Canada centuries before Columbus arrived in the Americas; and modern Chinese presence in Canada dates back more than a century, including the railway pioneers whose contribution was pivotal to the development of the nation from coast to coast.
This study of the literary output in English by Chinese Canadians begins with the 130-year history of the community in Canada to consider first how institutional racism and neglect contibuted to its collective silence in mainstream media, history, and mythology; and how historical awareness has emerged in the country. The genres of mythology anthology, fiction, poetry, drama and essay are considered in detail, as well as numerous writers, including Denise Chong, Sean Gunn, Winston Christopher Kam, Evelyn Lau, Sky Lee, Paul Lee, Fred Wah, Jim Wong-Chu and others.
BEYOND SILENCE is the first book-length study to attempt to construct the historical and cultural contexts of Chinese-Canadian writing, search out its lost texts, and build a theoretical ground for its reading. Especially powerful are its arguments that silence and silencing have been the strategic and--for writing--paradoxical tropes of both Chinese and Chinese-Canadian culture
- Frank Davey, University of Western Ontario
. . . an important milestone in the evolution of Canadian literary studies. By showing us how the historical experience of a community figures as recurrent themes and tropes in the texts produced by its writers and artists, this book powerfully deomonstrates the intertextuality of Chinese Canadian texts and why they can be grouped.
- Arun Mukherjee, York University
Synopsis
Newly available from SPD." "Beyond Silence" is the first book-length study to attempt to construct the historical and cultural contexts of Chinese-Canadian writing, search out its lost texts, and build a theoretical ground for its reading. Especially powerful are its arguments that silence and silencing have been the strategic and -- for writing -- paradoxical tropes of both Chinese and Chinese-Canadian culture" (Frank Davey, University of Western Ontario).
Synopsis
From unappreciated railway workers facing institutional racism and neglect in the last century to national cultural figures of the present, the Chinese, like other coloured peoples of Canada, have made great inroads into the mainstream, which in turn has adjusted its self-image to accommodate diversity.
Synopsis
Literary Criticism/ Cultural Studies, newly available from SPD. BEYOND SILENCE is the first book-length study to attempt to construct the historical and cultural contexts of Chinese-Canadian writing, search out its lost texts, and build a theoretical ground for its reading. Especially powerful are its arguments that silence and silencing have been the strategic and--for writing--paradoxical tropes of both Chinese and Chinese-Canadian culture--Frank Davey, University of Western Ontario. The authors covered include Denise Chong, Sean Gunn, Winston Christopher Kam, Evelyn Lau, Sky Lee, Paul Yee, Fred Wah, Jim Wong-Chu, and others. Lien Chao, originally from mainland China, is a poet and critic.
About the Author
Born in Hangzhou, China, Lien came to Canada in 1984 to pursue her graduate studies at York University in Toronto. She completed her M.A. in 1986 and her Ph.D in English 1995. Her first book, Beyond Silence: Chinese Canadian Literature in English (1997) won 1997 Gabrielle Roy Award for Canadian Criticism. Her second book, Maples and the Stream (1999) is a long narrative poem written in English and Chinese. Her third work, Tiger Girl (Hu N) (2001), a creative memoir, covers thirty-five years of recent Chinese history with a large cast of thirty some characters, most of them, women. In 2003, she edited Strike the Wok: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Canadian Fiction (2003) with her co-editor Jim Wong-Chu. Another bilingual poetry collection in English and Chinese, More Than Skin Deep, was published in fall 2004. She also curates art exhibitions, writes art criticism, and edits art books for publication. A Collection of Ma Peng 's Chinese Brush Painting was published in Taiwan in 1997. China-Canada Friendship Sculpture Garden was published by Beijing Foreign Language Press in 2004. Two new art books on Chinese Brush Painting will be published in 2008 in Canada by TSAR. She is a member of the Writers ' Union of Canada and Asian Writers ' Workshop; a board member for the Chinese Pen Society of Canada, and Canadian Foundation for Asian Culture (Central Ontario) Inc.