Asian Canadian Writing Beyond Autoethnography explores some of the latest developments in the literary and cultural practices of Canadians of Asian heritage. While earlier work by ethnic, multicultural, or minority writers in Canada was often concerned with immigration, the moment of arrival, issues of assimilation, and conflicts between generations, literary and cultural production in the new millennium no longer focuses solely on the conflict between the Old World and the New or the clashes between culture of origin and adopted culture. No longer are minority authors identifying simply with their ethnic or racial cultural background in opposition to dominant culture.
The essays in this collection explore ways in which Asian Canadian authors (such as Larissa Lai, Shani Mootoo, Fred Wah, Hiromi Goto, Suniti Namjoshi, and Ying Chen) and artists (such as Ken Lum, Paul Wong, and Laiwan) have gone beyond what Françoise Lionnet calls autoethnography, or ethnographic autobiography. They demonstrate the ways representations of race and ethnicity, particularly in works by Asian Canadians in the last decade, have changed have become more playful, untraditional, aesthetically and ideologically transgressive, and exciting.

Eleanor Ty is a professor and chair of the Department of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario. She is the author of The Politics of the Visible in Asian North American Narratives and co-editor with Donald Goellnicht of Asian North American Identities beyond the Hyphen.

Christl Verduyn teaches Canadian Studies and English at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick. She publishes on Canadian and Qu?b?cois women’s writing, multiculturalism and minority writing, and life writing, and was the recipient in 2006 of the Governor General’s International Award for Canadian Studies. She is the editor of Marian Engel’s Notebooks: Ah, mon cahier, coute ... (WLU Press, 1999) and Must Write: Edna Staebler’s Diaries (WLU Press, 2005).

Eleanor Ty's profile page

Christl Verduyn is the author, editor, or co-editor of over a dozen volumes in the areas of Canadian and Québécois literatures, women’s writing and criticism, “multicultural” and life writing, and Canadian Studies. Before joining the faculty at Mount Allison University, where she is now Professor Emerita of English and Canadian Studies, Dr. Verduyn taught at Wilfrid Laurier University, where she chaired the Canadian Studies Program, and at Trent University, where she was Chair of Women’s Studies (1987-90) and Chair of Canadian Studies (1993-99). A past editor of the Journal of Canadian Studies, recipient of the Governor General’s International Award for Canadian Studies and of the Order of Canada (CM), she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) and a 3M National Teaching Fellow.

Christl Verduyn's profile page

• Commended, Association for Asian American Studies Literary Studies Book Award

Beyond Autoethnography offers an impressive set of critical interventions that illustrate the range of scholarship in Asian Canadian literary studies and will be of great interest to scholars and students of contemporary Asian Canadian culture.

Christopher Lee, University of British Columbia, Pacific Affairs, Volume 82, no. 2, Summer 2009