How do different ethnic groups approach the short story form? Do different groups develop culture-related themes? Do oral traditions within a particular culture shape the way in which written stories are told? Why does "the community" loom so large in ethnic stories? How do such traditional forms as African American slave narratives or the Chinese talk-story shape the modern short story? Which writers of color should be added to the canon? Why have some minority writers been ignored for such a long time? How does a person of color write for white publishers, editors, and readers? Each essay in this collection of original studies addresses these questions and other related concerns. It is common knowledge that most scholarly work on the short story has been on white writers: This collection is the first work to specifically focus on short story practice by ethnic minorities in America, ranging from African Americans to Native Americans, Chinese Americans to Hispanic Americans. The number of women writers discussed will be of particular interest to women studies and genre studies researchers, and the collections will be of vital interest to scholars working in American literature, narrative theory, and multicultural studies.

How do different ethnic groups approach the short story form? Do different groups develop culture-related themes? Do oral traditions within a particular culture shape the way in which written stories are told? Why does "the community" loom so large in ethnic stories? How do such traditional forms as African American slave narratives or the Chinese talk-story shape the modern short story? Which writers of color should be added to the canon? Why have some minority writers been ignored for such a long time? How does a person of color write for white publishers, editors, and readers? Each essay in this collection of original studies addresses these questions and other related concerns. It is common knowledge that most scholarly work on the short story has been on white writers: This collection is the first work to specifically focus on short story practice by ethnic minorities in America, ranging from African Americans to Native Americans, Chinese Americans to Hispanic Americans. The number of women writers discussed will be of particular interest to women studies and genre studies researchers, and the collections will be of vital interest to scholars working in American literature, narrative theory, and multicultural studies.

Explores the contradictory position of Arabic being both the official language and marginalized in Israel

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Set in different cities around the world, Elaine Chiew's award-winning stories travel into the heart of the Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese diasporas to explore the lives of those torn between cultures and juggling divided selves. In the title story, four writers find their cultural bonds of friendship tested when a handsome young Asian writer joins their group. In other stories, a brother searches for his sister forced to serve as a comfort woman during World War Two; three Singaporean sisters run a French gourmet restaurant in New York; a woman raps about being a Tiger Mother in Belgravia; and a filmmaker struggles to document the lives of samsui women—Singapore's thrifty, hardworking construction workers. > Acutely observed, wry and playful, her stories are as worldly and emotionally resonant as the characters themselves. This fabulous debut collection heralds an exciting new literary voice.

This book reveals a female sexual economy in the marketplace of contemporary short fiction which locates a struggle for sexual power between mothers and daughters within a larger struggle to pursue that object of the American dream: whiteness.

A pioneering, dazzling satire about a biracial black girl from Philadelphia searching for her Jewish father in New York City Oreo is raised by her maternal grandparents in Philadelphia. Her black mother tours with a theatrical troupe, and her Jewish deadbeat dad disappeared when she was an infant, leaving behind a mysterious note that triggers her quest to find him. What ensues is a playful, modernized parody of the classical odyssey of Theseus with a feminist twist, immersed in seventies pop culture, and mixing standard English, black vernacular, and Yiddish with wisecracking aplomb. Oreo, our young hero, navigates the labyrinth of sound studios and brothels and subway tunnels in Manhattan, seeking to claim her birthright while unwittingly experiencing and triggering a mythic journey of self-discovery like no other.