Gish jen biography of michael

You had already explored the topic in your first nonfiction book, Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self GJ: Tiger Writing was really about the culture of the art world with a focus, of course, on literature ; and it was written for people interested in that world. When I was all done with it, though, I realized that what I had to say explained much more than literary culture, or art culture—that it explained things that puzzled many people on both sides of the East-West divide.

And so I took some time out from fiction to write, for once, a useful book. Can you reiterate your understanding of East and West? GJ: It is obviously impossible to draw a line between East and West, geographically or otherwise. And yet, paradoxically, there is a cultural gap—really between what psychologist Richard Nisbett called the West and the rest, with the "West" mostly meaning Western Europe and the U.

Of course, what with the Western dominance of the world, Americans are often blissfully unaware of what a minority we actually are in our thinking, and how we use our narratives as a mirror rather than a window.

Gish jen biography of michael: Gish Jen has published short

Is it dangerous to blind ourselves this way? Of course. We would have been far more aware that the Vietnamese were capable of digging, and living in, huge networks of tunnels, for example, had we understood how different their selves were than that of the average American soldier; and had we been aware of that, perhaps we would have thought better of getting into the quagmire of the Vietnam War.

As for whether the dangers are greater than ever today—absolutely. NP: As a literary critic, I was particularly intrigued when your book explored a recent rise of memoirs as a thriving market in the U. Can you elaborate on this? GJ: It is both. The memoir is a way for the individualistic self, cut off from traditional forms of intimacy, to connect with others.

Quotes by Gish Jen? Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. Learn more. A man was the sum of his limits: freedom only made him see how much so. America was no America. See all Gish Jen's quotes ». Topics Mentioning This Author. It takes a carpenter to build on. Add a reference: Book Author. Search for a book to add a reference.

Welcome back. As Typical American illustrates, in this generation of immigrant novels there really is no "typical American"—Ralph Chang, as much as anyone, can stake claim to that title. As part of this new generation of novelists focusing on the immigrant experience in America, Jen then reconstructs and recasts the ways in which we see both the "American dream" and American identity.

At least since Crevecoeur posed the question in"What is an American? The answer to this question, of course, has never been easy or stable—American identity is fluid, shifting, unstable, and never more so than now. Nothing illustrates this better, perhaps, than Jen's second novel, Mona in the Promised Land. Americans, this novel suggests, are constantly reinventing themselves, and no one more so than Mona, who in the course of the novel "switches" to Jewish after entertaining thoughts of "becoming" Japanese and becomes, to her friends, "the Changowitz.

Gish jen biography of michael: Author Gish Jen talks about growing

It is also through Naomi that both Callie and Mona decide that they are "colored. The "promised land" in Mona in the Promised Land is one in which the characters have the freedom to be or become whatever they want—within, of course, the limitations placed upon them by American culture and society. Mona in the Promised Landlike Typical Americanis narrated in a straightforward, realistic fashion, without the self-conscious narrative stance or vast intertextual references of writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston there is no winking at the reader or formal pyrogenics here.

While Jen's writing is poignant and beautiful—as well as often hilariously funny—she clearly puts her characters, rather than her narrative, center stage. It is the characters, with wonderful dialogue that catches all the idiosyncrasies of American speech regardless of ethnicity or gender of the characterwho stand out in Jen's novels. Don't have an account?

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Gish jen biography of michael: Gish Jen was born

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