Banana Bending : Asian-Australian and Asian-Canadian Literatures

This is the first book ever to present a comparative reading of East Asian-Australian and East Asian-Canadian novels while addressing the literary and political cultures of Australia and Canada. Generally, the book examines the limits and possibilities for these diasporic literatures in multicultural societies and their placement in relation to national literatures. Issues discussed in the book include: citizenship/belonging, community, images of suburbia, tensions in gender/sexuality, and recycling traditional folklore for contemporary situations. The book offers new perspectives on Australian and Canadian life and society, addressing contemporary anxieties about citizenship, cohesion in multicultural communities, ideas of ‘homeland,'and the cultural potential of the ‘melting pot.'The author offers extensive background information so that those unfamiliar with either Australian or Canadian material can quickly acquaint themselves with the necessary contexts as well as delving further into their details. Its comparative approach offers a unique way to deal with issues of diasporic ‘asian-ness'(a dynamic area of study) and national stereotypes. The book also provides a useful counter-point to recent discussions of Asian-American literature. Asian-Australian and Asian-Canadian writers exist within the realities of specific national contexts that are not necessarily bypassed by configurations of the diasporic community. Tseen-Ling Khoo shows that Asian-Canadian and Asian-Australian literatures are developing in dissimilar ways because of demographic and geographical differences, the degree of governmental intervention through cultural policy initiatives, and the levels of encouragement or financial support for racial minority authors and their work. Khoo exposes the particularities of literary development within specific historical bases through comparative critiques of Asian-Canadian and Asian-Australian texts and argues that the questions of whether authors of Asian descent writing in the western world are adding to national canons or creating subversive (but marginalized) streams will remain as long as binary demarcations prevail. Khoo contends that literary criticism should see racial minority literatures as existing in both categories at once, thus shifting the boundaries of what constitutes a national canon as well as posing challenges to the literary status quo. "This is the first book to present a comparative reading of East Asian-Australian and East Asian-Canadian novels while addressing the literary and political cultures of Australia and Canada. Generally, the book examines the limits and possibilities for these diasporic literatures in multicultural societies and their placement in relation to national literatures. Issues discussed in the book include citizenship/belonging, community, images of suburbia, tensions in gender/sexuality, and recycling traditional folklore for contemporary situations. The book offers new perspectives on Australian and Canadian life and society, addressing contemporary anxieties about citizenship, cohesion in multicultural communities, ideas of 'homeland', and the cultural potential of the 'melting pot'. The author offers extensive background information so that those unfamiliar with either Australian or Canadian material can quickly acquaint themselves with the necessary contexts as well as delving further into their details."--BOOK JACKET Banana Bending......Page 4 Copyright ......Page 5 Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgements......Page 8 Introduction......Page 10 1. "A Chink in the Armour": Asian-Australian Space......Page 22 2. "Spitting in the Soup": Asian-Canadian Space......Page 44 3. Colouring In: Possibilities of Nationalism in Diaspora......Page 64 4. "At Home in Your Embarrassment": Boundaries of Community and Ethnicity......Page 98 5. Patriotism, War, and Other National Desires: Asian Masculinities in Progress......Page 128 6. Emerging Extravagance in Diasporic Asian Women's Writing......Page 158 Conclusion......Page 182 Notes......Page 194 Bibliography......Page 206 Index......Page 226