Multicultural American Literature: Comparative Black, Native, Latino/a and Asian American Fictions 1st Edition
by A. Robert Lee (Author)
3.5 3.5 out of 5 stars (13)
Prizewinner in the twenty-fifth annual AMERICAN BOOK AWARDS for 2004, presented by the Before Columbus Foundation. A full, detailed and carefully comparative analysis of recent American ‘ethnic’ writing from an author with an unparalleled knowledge of his subject. Timely, wide-ranging and informative, this book covers the writing – in both fiction and autobiography – of Black, Native, Latino/a and Asian American authors including Ishmael Reed, Toni Morrison, Gerald Vizenor, Lesley Marmon Silko, Rudolfo Anaya, Sandra Cisneros, Maxine Hong Kingston and Jessica Hagedorn. Taking a cultural studies perspective, A. Robert Lee recognises the context of politics and popular culture and draws on the visual as well as the literary spectrum.This is the first book of its kind – while there are books available which introduce one or other of the ethnic traditions, no one has yet considered them in comparative terms in a single volume. As such it will be an invaluable resource for all those with an interest in multicultural American literature.Selling Points• First single volume comparative analysis of recent American ‘ethnic’ writing• Timely, wide-ranging and informative• Covers both fiction and autobiography
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About the Author
A. Robert Lee has taught at the University of Kent in the UK and at Nihon University in
Japan. His more than forty book publications include two previously from Edinburgh
University Press: Multicultural American Literature (2003), which won the American
Book Award in 2004, and The Beats: Authorships, Legacies (2019). He has held
visiting professorships at Bryn Mawr College, Northwestern University, the University
of Colorado, the University of New Mexico and the University of California, Berkeley.
Product details
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
Publication date : October 2, 2003
Edition : 1st
Language : English
Print length : 320 pages
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From the United States
Shay
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2016
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It arrived on time and much needed for my course.
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Charles Ferraro
2.0 out of 5 stars Multicultural American Literature: Comparative Black, Native, Latin, and Asian American Fictions
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2008
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Wordy, bias, book of hate.
I do not say things lightly, and yes, I have read it cover to cover. Essentially, whites are evil and everyone is a victim are the two central thesis points.
All of the examples point to this idea.
The book is very difficult to read, both for its wordiness and its content.
Whatever happened to "I have a dream that we would not judge each other by the color of our skin, but the content of our character."
2 people found this helpful
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A. Yerkes
1.0 out of 5 stars skims without depth
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2008
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This book is a general survey with many pages of summary of both primary and secondary literature but very little analysis. It fits lots of titles into its broad discussion but offers neither insightful interpretation nor adequate interrogation of the criticism or theory that is needed to interpret the literature. I bought this hoping it would help me prepare to teach a college-level course on the subject and was sorely disappointed.
6 people found this helpful
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J.Hoadley
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderfully intelligent contribution
Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2010
Editorial Review
Lee begins by pointing out that the term "fiction" in the book's title includes many genres, such as novels, novellas, stories, story-cycles, verse chronicles, and autobiography. In the first chapter, he analyzes several important novels, drawn from what he calls four different "legacies," by Ralph Ellison, Scott Momaday, Rudolfo Anaya, and Maxine Hong Kingston. This is followed by a deft and perceptive account of ethnic autobiography, and the permutations it undergoes in writers such as N. Scott Momaday, John Edgar Wideman and Lorene Cary, Piri Thomas and Gloria Anzaldua, Garrett Hongo and Li-Young Lee, among others. The following chapters focus on specific issues within (successively)the African American, Native American, Chicano and Asian American traditions. In doing so, however, he is careful to point out that these categories are deceptively wide, and that writers may belong to more than one tradition (the case of Scott Momaday, with links to Kiowa, Cherokee, and Jemez Pueblo comes to mind). In keeping with recent developments in the field of cultural geography, he then shifts to an emphasis on ethnic sites and topographies, such as Harlem, Indian country, the Borderlands, and Indian Town. The book concludes with a chapter on multicultural postmodernism, and with an excellent epilogue titled "Fictions of Whiteness" on the complexities of white ethnic identity. Lee is dazzlingly well read and articulate, and his perceptive analyses are guaranteed to delight and, on occasion, infuriate his readers. Multicultural American Literature is a wonderfully intelligent contribution to the continuing debate about the nature of the canon of United States literature.
Susan Castillo, Journal of American Studies, Vol. 40, No. 2, July 2006.
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Pepa
5.0 out of 5 stars Wide-ranging interpretations
Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2010
A. Robert Lee's Multicultural American Literature: Comparative Black, Native, Latino/a Literature weaves together wide-ranging interpretations of American writing into a study with near encyclopedic breadth. For his "busy" but "locally attentive" synthesis, Lee's ambitious task is to situate "each text within multiple contexts of U.S. culture and ethnicity, both high and broad, and yet give recognition to particularity, a self-fashioning force of invention" (16). Following this scheme of modular minimalism, Lee's chapters cover dozens of novels and poems in extensive chains of capsule interpretations and flurries of deft contextual sketches, covering a plurality of experiences and modes of writing.
An early chapter on the ethnic quartet of Ralph Ellison, N. Scott Momaday, Rudolfo Anaya, and Maxine Hong Kingston prefigures the book's geohistorical interpretive texture, yoking together "the Afro-America of Dixie, the Native America of Jemez Pueblo reservation, the chicanismo of New Mexico and the "'Gold Mountain' Chinese America of San Francisco," each representing for Lee "a virtuosity which carries the local towards an emphatically more inclusive ambit" (20). Lee's emphatically inclusive ambit spans separate chapters on canonical and less-read fiction under the categories under the categories of African American, Asian American, Latino, and Native American Fiction, and chapters on generic and thematic categories such as autobiography, urban and island cultural geographies, and ethnic postmodernism. The final figure to emerge in this critical tapestry is culturally constituted whiteness, the "not-so-secret sharer in the setting of terms whereby almost all American literary activity has been construed," which Lee's study primes for genealogical revision.
Alex Feerst, American Literature, Vol. 78, June 2006
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Ms Reader Writer
5.0 out of 5 stars the best fundament to built further researches on!!
Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2008
I can only highly recommend A. Robert Lee's *Multicultural American Literature* to anyone interested, in the broadest sense, in American Literature. I am working on my PhD and am using Lee's book for my thesis as I have used it already to earn my Magister Artium.
I fail to comprehend how some reviewers can claim Lee's book to be unorganized, it is very well structured and easy to follow and yet it offers new insights to even advanced researchers.
At first there is a general introduction to the topic and the problematic of *Multicultural American Literature,* the dilemma of authors with a mixed ancestry unable to claim one cultural heritage as their own and only true one.
Then follows an overview of the most leading authors of various ethnic groups, that are easily overlooked in a canon still mostly made up of DWAS. Then Lee focuses on the themes which are common across all ethnic groups making up *Multicultural American Literature*. Then he leads the reader on to a brief history of African American literature, Native American literature, Chicano/a Literature and Asian American literature. He discusses similarities and differences between and within each ethnic group--just as well as the Native American's dilemma of being pressed in one nation but actually being a kaleidoscopic group of nations.
Lee even includes Island America.
Of course after reading *Multicultural American Literature* one does not know all about American Literature but has one of the best fundaments to build further researches on and a fair knowledge of the often neglected and falsely called minority literature.
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A Cubillo
1.0 out of 5 stars Very poor
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2006
Lee follows a stream of conciousness/dilettante approach to literary criticism that fails, time and time again, to get to the key issues.
4 people found this helpful
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Dickstern
5.0 out of 5 stars Readable, Crosscutting Literary History
Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2006
What A. Robert Lee has accomplished in Multicultural American Literature is a rare feat in the world of books, a thoroughly readable text that makes its scholarly subject accessable to a wide readership. Lee's style is as important as his comprehensive treatment of the recent history of U.S. literatures of race and ethnicity. It is not surprising that his effort garnered the American Book Award, although one certainly does not have to be American to appreciate Lee's deft touch.
While Multicultural American Literature focuses on the writing that has emerged from American racial and ethnic communities in the post-Civil Rights era, Lee provides a broader context for understanding this work. Moreover, his text is carefully nuanced. It is not enough to say that he examines developments in African-American, Asian-American, Latino/a, and American Indian literatures. He looks at the complex interaction of voices within each of these broad categories. Tribal writers assert cultural differences as well as similarities. Chicano writers share a language with their contemporaries from Puerto Rico and the Hispanic West Indies, but here, too, there are important cultural differences.
Lee, further, tackles head on one of the most important questions concerning American ethnic literatures today: their relationship to the mainstream postmodernism that emerged during the very same time frame. His concluding chapter stands as a reminder of the most important lesson to come from the scholarly examination of multicultural writing, that there is an American writing of whiteness and that raciality of all colors is an ideological artifact.
Multicultural American Literature is a tribute to the complexity of the racial subject in the United States.
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M. Tarpley
1.0 out of 5 stars Not impressed
Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2005
I had to order this book for a college course I was taking. The book made no sense and subsequently I dropped the course. I've read better material.
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<다문화 미국 문학: 흑인, 원주민, 라티노, 아시아계 미국 소설의 비교 연구> 요약 및 평론
1. 요약: 다성성과 하이픈의 미학
A. 로버트 리(A. Robert Lee)의 <다문화 미국 문학: 흑인, 원주민, 라티노, 아시아계 미국 소설의 비교 연구>(Multicultural American Literature: Comparative Black, Native, Latino/a and Asian American Fictions)는 미국 문학의 지형을 백인 중심의 단일 서사에서 벗어나 풍부한 다성성(Polyphony)의 공간으로 재정의하려는 학술적 시도이다. 저자는 흑인, 원주민, 라티노, 아시아계로 분류되는 이른바 <마이너리티> 문학이 단순한 저항 문학을 넘어, 미국이라는 국가 정체성을 형성하는 핵심적인 축임을 논증한다.
흑인 문학: 보이지 않는 인간에서 존재의 증명으로
리는 아프리카계 미국 문학의 핵심을 <가시성(Visibility)>과 <목소리(Voice)>의 쟁취로 본다. 랄프 엘리슨의 <보이지 않는 인간>부터 토니 모리슨의 <빌러비드>에 이르기까지, 흑인 작가들은 노예제의 트라우마를 치유하고 인종 차별이라는 구조적 모순 속에서 주체적 자아를 확립해 나가는 과정을 그린다. 리는 특히 이들 소설이 재즈, 블루스, 구전 설화와 같은 아프리카계 고유의 문화적 자산과 결합하여 독특한 미학적 형식을 구축했음에 주목한다.
원주민 문학: 상실의 기록과 재생의 서사
원주민(Native American) 문학 섹션에서는 땅에 대한 영성(Spirituality)과 식민주의에 의한 상실이 주요 테마로 다루어진다. 엔스 레이먼드 실코나 스콧 모마데이 등의 작품을 분석하며, 저자는 원주민 문학이 단순한 과거의 향수가 아니라, 현대 미국 사회 속에서 여전히 살아 숨 쉬는 정체성의 투쟁임을 강조한다. 구전 전통의 문자화 과정에서 나타나는 <언어의 힘>은 이들의 문학을 지탱하는 가장 강력한 무기다.
라티노 문학: 국경의 경계와 혼종성
라티노/라티나 문학은 <메스티사헤(Mestizaje, 혼혈성)>와 국경(Borderland)의 역동성을 기반으로 한다. 치카노(Chicano), 푸에르토리코계, 쿠바계 등 다양한 배경을 가진 이들의 소설은 스페인어와 영어 사이의 언어적 긴장감을 활용한다. 리는 산드라 시스네로스와 주노 디아스 등의 작품을 통해, 이들이 지리적 국경뿐만 아니라 문화적, 심리적 경계를 넘나들며 새로운 미국인상을 제시하고 있음을 분석한다.
아시아계 문학: 타자화된 시선과 귀환의 정치학
아시아계 미국 문학은 <영원한 이방인>이라는 낙인에 맞서는 서사를 중심으로 전개된다. 리는 중국, 일본, 한국, 필리핀계 작가들이 겪는 세대 간 갈등, 이민의 고통, 그리고 서구적 시선에 의해 대상화된 동양성(Orientalism)을 어떻게 전복시키는지를 탐구한다. 특히 맥신 홍 킹스턴과 에이미 탄 등의 작가를 통해 개인의 기억이 어떻게 공동체의 역사로 확장되는지를 고찰한다.
2. 평론: 경계에서 피어난 새로운 정전(Canon)
A. 로버트 리의 이 저작은 미국 문학 연구의 패러다임을 <동화(Assimilation)>에서 <비교(Comparison)>로 전환했다는 점에서 선구적인 가치를 지닌다.
첫째, 비교 문학적 접근의 탁월성
이 책의 가장 큰 미덕은 각 분과 문학을 고립된 섬으로 다루지 않고 서로 연결한다는 점이다. 저자는 흑인의 <이중 의식>과 아시아계의 <하이픈 정체성>, 원주민의 <공간적 소속감>과 라티노의 <국경 의식> 사이의 유사점과 차이점을 면밀히 대조한다. 이를 통해 다문화 문학이 단지 소수자의 목소리를 모아놓은 선집이 아니라, 서로의 고통과 희망이 교차하는 거대한 그물망임을 증명한다.
둘째, 미학적 형식에 대한 존중
많은 다문화 문학 연구가 사회학적 분석에 치중하는 우를 범하는 반면, 리는 각 텍스트의 <문학성> 자체에 집중한다. 그는 작가들이 사용하는 은유, 상징, 서사 구조, 언어적 유희를 분석함으로써 이들의 작품이 단순한 정치적 메시지의 전달 수단이 아니라 고도의 예술적 성취임을 명시한다. 이는 마이너리티 문학을 정전(Canon)의 반열로 끌어올리는 결정적인 역할을 한다.
셋째, <미국인임>의 재정의
저자는 이 책을 통해 <미국적인 것(Americanness)>이란 무엇인가에 대해 근본적인 질문을 던진다. 그에게 미국은 완성된 하나의 조각상이 아니라, 끊임없이 유입되는 다양한 이주민의 서사가 부딪히고 융합되며 만들어가는 <과정 중의 지도>다. 리가 분석하는 소설들은 백인 주류 사회에 편입되기를 갈구하는 이야기가 아니라, 그들만의 독특한 색채로 미국이라는 캔버스를 새롭게 채색하는 과정이다.
한계와 시사점
다만, 방대한 범위를 다루다 보니 개별 작가나 작품에 대한 심도 있는 논의가 다소 평이하게 느껴질 수 있다는 점은 아쉬움으로 남는다. 또한 21세기 이후 급변하는 디지털 환경이나 성소수자(LGBTQ+) 다문화 서사 등에 대한 보완이 필요할 수 있다.
결론적으로, 이 책은 다문화주의가 위협받는 현대 사회에서 문학이 어떻게 타자의 고통에 공감하고, 다름을 인정하며, 더 넓은 공동체의 가치를 구축할 수 있는지를 보여주는 이정표와 같다. 세진님께서 관심을 가지시는 세계 시민적 관점에서도, 이 저작은 국가라는 경계를 넘어 인간 존재의 보편성과 특수성을 동시에 이해하는 데 깊은 통찰을 제공할 것이다.
세진님, 요청하신 대로 A. 로버트 리의 저서를 요약하고 평론해 드렸습니다. 이 책의 비교 분석적 관점이 세진님의 깊은 학문적 탐구에 도움이 되기를 바랍니다. 추가로 궁금한 점이 있으시면 언제든 말씀해 주세요.
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