Understanding Gish Jen

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Understanding Gish Jen

Jennifer Ann Ho
Understanding Gish Jen Book PDF

Author : Jennifer Ann Ho
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
Page : 152 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2015-11-30
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781611175899

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Understanding Gish Jen by Jennifer Ann Ho Pdf

Jennifer Ann Ho introduces readers to a “typical American” writer, Gish Jen, the author of four novels, Typical American, Mona in the Promised Land, The Love Wife, and World and Town; a collection of short stories, Who’s Irish?; and a collection of lectures, Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self. Jen writes with an engaging, sardonic, and imaginative voice illuminating themes common to the American experience: immigration, assimilation, individualism, the freedom to choose one’s path in life, and the complicated relationships that we have with our families and our communities. A second-generation Chinese American, Jen is widely recognized as an important American literary voice, at once accessible, philosophical, and thought-provoking. In addition to her novels, she has published widely in periodicals such as the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and Yale Review. Ho traces the evolution of Jen’s career, her themes, and the development of her narrative voice. In the process she shows why Jen’s observations about life in the United States, though revealed through the perspectives of her Asian American and Asian immigrant characters, resonate with a variety of audiences who find themselves reflected in Jen’s accounts of love, grief, desire, disappointment, and the general domestic experiences that shape all our lives. Following a brief biographical sketch, Ho examines each of Jen’s major works, showing how she traces the transformation of immigrant dreams into mundane life, explores the limits of self-identification, and characterizes problems of cross-national communication alongside the universal problems of aging and generational conflict. Looking beyond Jen’s fiction work, a final chapter examines her essays and her concerns and stature as a public intellectual, and detailed primary and secondary bibliographies provide a valuable point of departure for both teaching and future scholarship.

Understanding Gish Jen: With a New Preface

Jennifer Ann Ho
Understanding Gish Jen With a New Preface Book PDF

Author : Jennifer Ann Ho
Publisher : Understanding Contemporary Ame
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2023-07-05
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1643364235

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Understanding Gish Jen: With a New Preface by Jennifer Ann Ho Pdf

Traces the evolution of Jen's career, her themes, and the development of her narrative voice.

The Resisters

Gish Jen
The Resisters Book PDF

Author : Gish Jen
Publisher : Knopf
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780525657217

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The Resisters by Gish Jen Pdf

"The Resisters is palpably loving, smart, funny, and desperately unsettling. The novel should be required reading for the country both as a cautionary tale and because it is a stone-cold masterpiece. This is Gish Jen's moment. She has pitched a perfect game." --Ann Patchett The time: not so long from now. The place: AutoAmerica. The land: half under water. The Internet: one part artificial intelligence, one part surveillance technology, and oddly human--even funny. The people: Divided. The angel-fair "Netted" have jobs, and literally occupy the high ground. The "Surplus" live on swampland if they're lucky, on water if they're not. The story: To a Surplus couple--he once a professor, she still a lawyer--is born a Blasian girl with a golden arm. At two, Gwen is hurling her stuffed animals from the crib; by ten, she can hit whatever target she likes. Her teens find her happily playing in an underground baseball league. When AutoAmerica rejoins the Olympics, though--with a special eye on beating ChinRussia--Gwen attracts interest. Soon she finds herself playing ball with the Netted even as her mother challenges the very foundations of this divided society. A moving and important story of an America that seems ever more possible, The Resisters is also the story of one family struggling to maintain its humanity and normalcy in circumstances that threaten their every value--as well as their very existence. Extraordinary and ordinary, charming and electrifying, this is Gish Jen at her most irresistible.

Tiger Writing

Gish Jen
Tiger Writing Book PDF

Author : Gish Jen
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2013-03-25
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780674072831

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Tiger Writing by Gish Jen Pdf

In three pieces originally delivered as special lectures, draws on the biography of the author's father as well as the evolution of her own work to contrast Western and Eastern ideas of self-narration and interdependency.

Typical American

Gish Jen
Typical American Book PDF

Author : Gish Jen
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 307 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2014-11-11
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780547524092

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Typical American by Gish Jen Pdf

This “irresistible novel” of Chinese immigrants navigating the American dream is “startling [and] heartrending, without ever losing its comic touch” (Entertainment Weekly). Gish Jen reinvents the American immigrant story through the Chang family, who first come to the United States with no intention of staying. But when the Communists assume control of China in 1949, Ralph Chang, his sister Theresa, and his wife Helen find themselves in a crisis, struggling to cling to their old-world ideas of themselves. But soon they begin to dream the American dream of self-invention. They transform, poignantly and ironically, from people who disparage all that is “typical American” to people who aspire to the American ideal. With droll humor and a deep empathy for her characters, Gish Jen creates a superbly engrossing story that sparkles with wit while challenging the reader to reconsider what it means to be a typical American. “No paraphrase could capture the intelligence of Gish Jen’s prose, its epigrammatic sweep and swiftness . . . . The author just keeps coming at you line after stunning line.” —The New York Times Book Review

Mona in the Promised Land

Gish Jen
Mona in the Promised Land Book PDF

Author : Gish Jen
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 392 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2012-08-29
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780307826589

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Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen Pdf

From the acclaimed, award-winning author of Thank You, Mr. Nixon comes a “hilariously funny and seriously important” novel (Amy Tan) about American multiculturalism and a Chinese American teenager doing her best to fit in–even if it means converting to Judaism. In these pages, acclaimed author Gish Jen introduces us to teenaged Mona Chang, who in 1968 moves with her newly prosperous family to Scarshill, New York. Here, the Chinese are seen as "the new Jews." What could be more natural than for Mona to take this literally—even to the point of converting? As Mona attends temple "rap" sessions and falls in love (with a nice Jewish boy who lives in a tepee), Jen introduces us to one of the most charming and sweet-spirited heroines in recent fiction, a girl who can wisecrack with perfect aplomb even when she's organizing the help in her father's pancake house. On every page, Gish Jen sets our received notions spinning with a wit as dry as a latter-day Jane Austen's.

Thank You, Mr. Nixon

Gish Jen
Thank You Mr Nixon Book PDF

Author : Gish Jen
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 231 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2022-02-01
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780593319901

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Thank You, Mr. Nixon by Gish Jen Pdf

The acclaimed, award-winning author of The Resisters takes measure of the fifty years since the opening of China and its unexpected effects on the lives of ordinary people. It is a unique book that only Jen could write—a story collection accruing the power of a novel as it proceeds—a work that Cynthia Ozick has called “an art beyond art. It is life itself.” Beginning with a cheery letter penned by a Chinese girl in heaven to “poor Mr. Nixon” in hell, Gish Jen embarks on a fictional journey through U.S.-China relations, capturing the excitement of a world on the brink of tectonic change. Opal Chen reunites with her Chinese sisters after forty years; newly cosmopolitan Lulu Koo wonders why Americans “like to walk around in the woods with the mosquitoes”; Hong Kong parents go to extreme lengths to reestablish contact with their “number-one daughter” in New York; and Betty Koo, brought up on “no politics, just make money,” finds she must reassess her mother’s philosophy. With their profound compassion and equally profound humor, these eleven linked stories trace the intimate ways in which humans make and are made by history, capturing an extraordinary era in an extraordinary way. Delightful, provocative, and powerful, Thank You, Mr. Nixon furnishes yet more proof of Gish Jen’s eminent place among American storytellers.

The Love Wife

Gish Jen
The Love Wife Book PDF

Author : Gish Jen
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2004-09-14
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781400043798

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The Love Wife by Gish Jen Pdf

From the massively talented Gish Jen comes a barbed, moving, and stylistically dazzling new novel about the elusive nature of kinship. The Wongs describe themselves as a “half half” family, but the actual fractions are more complicated, given Carnegie’s Chinese heritage, his wife Blondie’s WASP background, and the various ethnic permutations of their adopted and biological children. Into this new American family comes a volatile new member.Her name is Lanlan. She is Carnegie’s Mainland Chinese relative, a tough, surprisingly lovely survivor of the Cultural Revolution, who comes courtesy of Carnegie’s mother’s will. Is Lanlan a very good nanny, a heartless climber, or a posthumous gift from a formidable mother who never stopped wanting her son to marry a nice Chinese girl? Rich in insight, buoyed by humor, The Love Wife is a hugely satisfying work.

Who's Irish?

Gish Jen
Who s Irish Book PDF

Author : Gish Jen
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2012-08-29
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780307826541

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Who's Irish? by Gish Jen Pdf

In this dazzling collection of short stories, the award-winning author of the acclaimed novels Thank You, Mr. Nixon and Mona in the Promised Land—presents a "sparkling ... gently satiric look at the American Dream and its fallout on those who pursue it" (The New York Times). The stories in Who's Irish? show us the children of immigrants looking wonderingly at their parents' efforts to assimilate, while the older generation asks how so much selfless hard work on their part can have yielded them offspring who'd sooner drop out of life than succeed at it. With dazzling wit and compassion, Gish Jen looks at ambition and compromise at century's end and finds that much of the action is as familiar—and as strange—as the things we know to be most deeply true about ourselves.

A Song Everlasting

Ha Jin
A Song Everlasting Book PDF

Author : Ha Jin
Publisher : Pantheon
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2021-07-27
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781524748791

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A Song Everlasting by Ha Jin Pdf

From the universally admired, National Book Award-winning, bestselling author of Waiting—a timely novel that follows a famous Chinese singer severed from his country, as he works to find his way in the United States At the end of a U.S. tour with his state-supported choir, popular singer Yao Tian takes a private gig in New York to pick up some extra cash for his daughter’s tuition fund, but the consequences of his choice spiral out of control. On his return to China, Tian is informed that the sponsors of the event were supporters of Taiwan’s secession, and that he must deliver a formal self-criticism. When he is asked to forfeit his passport to his employer, Tian impulsively decides instead to return to New York to protest the government’s threat to his artistic integrity. With the help of his old friend Yabin, Tian’s career begins to flourish in the United States. But he is soon placed on a Chinese gov­ernment blacklist and thwarted by the state at every turn, and it becomes increasingly clear that he may never return to China unless he denounces the freedoms that have made his new life possible. Tian nevertheless insists on his identity as a performer, refusing to give up his art. Moving, important, and strikingly relevant to our times, A Song Everlasting is a story of hope in the face of hardship from one of our most celebrated authors.

Conversations with Gish Jen

John Zheng,Biling Chen
Conversations with Gish Jen Book PDF

Author : John Zheng,Biling Chen
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2018-11-15
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781496819345

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Conversations with Gish Jen by John Zheng,Biling Chen Pdf

Conversations with Gish Jen is the first collection of interviews with the renowned contemporary American author Gish Jen (b. 1955), whose acclaimed fiction and nonfiction have fascinated American readers for more than thirty years. The conversations in this book offer first-hand information not only about Jen's authorial intentions, but also about her life as a daughter of Chinese immigrants. Spanning more than two decades, beginning in 1991 and ending with a new, unpublished interview from 2017, these interviews provide readers a sense of Jen's development as a novelist and cultural critic. Jen's insights into the merits and drawbacks of Eastern and Western cultures, including American individualism and exceptionalism and Asian interdependent mindset and living principles, provide us with keys to understanding the identity struggles of the author herself as well as her fictional characters. The comparative approach Jen adopts in her comments on such topics as education, politics, business, religion, and concepts of creativity and success provokes readers to reflect on their relationships with themselves, with the society in which they live, and with the rest of the world. At the heart of these conversations is Jen's sense of humor, which makes the book a joyful read for both scholars and casual fans of her work.

Consumption and Identity in Asian American Coming-of-Age Novels

Jennifer Ho
Consumption and Identity in Asian American Coming of Age Novels Book PDF

Author : Jennifer Ho
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2013-09-13
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781135469191

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Consumption and Identity in Asian American Coming-of-Age Novels by Jennifer Ho Pdf

This interdisciplinary study examines the theme of consumption in Asian American literature, connection representations of cooking and eating with ethnic identity formation. Using four discrete modes of identification--historic pride, consumerism, mourning, and fusion--Jennifer Ho examines how Asian American adolescents challenge and revise their cultural legacies and experiment with alternative ethnic affiliations through their relationships to food.

A Study Guide for Gish Jen's "What Means Switch"

Gale, Cengage Learning
A Study Guide for Gish Jen s What Means Switch Book PDF

Author : Gale, Cengage Learning
Publisher : Gale, Cengage Learning
Page : 23 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2024-06-14
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781410342768

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A Study Guide for Gish Jen's "What Means Switch" by Gale, Cengage Learning Pdf

A Study Guide for Gish Jen's "What Means Switch," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

The Best American Short Stories of the Century

John Updike
The Best American Short Stories of the Century Book PDF

Author : John Updike
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 868 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0395843677

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The Best American Short Stories of the Century by John Updike Pdf

Including one new story and an Index by author of every story that has ever appeared in the series, this new volume offers a "spectacular tapestry of fictional achievement" ("Entertainment Weekly").

Under Red Skies

Karoline Kan
Under Red Skies Book PDF

Author : Karoline Kan
Publisher : Hachette Books
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2019-03-12
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780316412032

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Under Red Skies by Karoline Kan Pdf

A deeply personal and shocking look at how China is coming to terms with its conflicted past as it emerges into a modern, cutting-edge superpower. Through the stories of three generations of women in her family, Karoline Kan, a former New York Times reporter based in Beijing, reveals how they navigated their way in a country beset by poverty and often-violent political unrest. As the Kans move from quiet villages to crowded towns and through the urban streets of Beijing in search of a better way of life, they are forced to confront the past and break the chains of tradition, especially those forced on women. Raw and revealing, Karoline Kan offers gripping tales of her grandmother, who struggled to make a way for her family during the Great Famine; of her mother, who defied the One-Child Policy by giving birth to Karoline; of her cousin, a shoe factory worker scraping by on 6 yuan (88 cents) per hour; and of herself, as an ambitious millennial striving to find a job--and true love--during a time rife with bewildering social change. Under Red Skies is an engaging eyewitness account and Karoline's quest to understand the rapidly evolving, shifting sands of China. It is the first English-language memoir from a Chinese millennial to be published in America, and a fascinating portrait of an otherwise-hidden world, written from the perspective of those who live there.