Chinese American literature

The genre began in the 19th century and flowered in the 20th with such authors as Sui Sin Far, Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Amy Tan.

[4] Tone as well as content differed, as Chinese American writers in English dealt with rampant stereotypes of the Yellow Peril.

Among these early writers was Yung Wing, the first Chinese student to graduate from an American University (Yale, in 1854), whose autobiography, My Life in China and America, was published in 1909.

Maxine Hong Kingston won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1976 for The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts.

Bette Bao Lord's Spring Moon (1981) became an international bestseller and an American Book Award nominee.

Currently active and acclaimed Chinese American authors are Gish Jen, Jean Kwok, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, and Sandra Tsing Loh.

Shawn Wong's novel American Knees, published in 1996, was adapted into an independent feature film entitled Americanese in 2009.