A/PIA Top 15 writers list

1. Maxine Hong Kingston
2. Jhumpa Lahiri
3. Frank Chin
4. Eileen Chang
5. Amy Tan
6. Jin Xuefei
7. Bharati Mukherjee
8. David Henry Hwang
9. Kiran Desai
10. Chang-Rae Lee
11. Iris Chang
12. Naomi Hirahara
13. Jessica Hagedorn
14. Khaled Hosseini
15. Sui Sin Far

Rationale and Criteria

Recognition and awards

Is the writer well-known? Does he/she has great reputation and widely acknowledged by their works in American literary world? Does he/she win any awards?

Influence

Does the writer make big impact on the area regardless of the awards they won? Does he/she make breakthroughs in the area? Does any of his/her works gain significant public acclaims and can make the writer be remembered?

Diversity

I hope writers from the list are from diverse backgrounds. If all of them are from the same ancestry, the list cannot represent the writer from the whole A/PIA society.

Why I choose this topic & Selection Process

Why I choose this topic

I decided to make a list of Top 15 A/PIA American writers because of my great interest to literature. Through writing, A/PIA is able to let their voices be heard by American society and promote communication and understanding between Eastern and Western culture. They provide a unique perspective to look at the American society and draw people’s attention to the complex issues that minorities have to face. Many of A/PIA writers achieve great success but are not widely known by Americans. It is time we praised their achievement and showed our respect to what they have done for A/PIA community.

I make the final list in a number of fifteen because I believe the fifteen writers I choose exert more influence to the world than other A/PIA writers. They are widely recognized by a number of awards and have great reputation in the literary area. I still need to point out that it is hard to exclude any of the A/PIA writers from the list. They are also really excellent writers and make great contribution. The reason why they are not on this list is the fact that they may not be widely known or recognized by awards and honors. Some of them, like Bruce Lee, who is a playwright but his biggest contribution is in acting and writing is only his avocation.

Selection Process

The first thing to decide is who A/PIA writers are. As A/PIA writers, they must be the descent of Asians or Pacific Islanders, either pure or half blood, but now have the nationality of America or are permanent resident in America. Writers originally from Middle East and West Asia should also be incorporated in the list since it is still a part of Asia. I define writer as people who publish any subject of work in written languages. They can be novelist, poet, playwright, etc.

Then I searched the internet to make a list of all the A/PIA writers out there. Then I looked at their biography, the awards they won, other authorities’ comments to evaluate their influence to society and their achievement in writing. I make the final list using the criteria below.

No.1 Maxine Hong Kingston

Introduction

Maxine Hong Kingston is a Chinese American author and Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Kingston was born in California to first generation Chinese immigrants. She graduated from Berkeley with a BA in English in 1962. She married Earll Kingston in 1962 and she began writing extensively since 1967.

Selected Works

• Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, 2006
• The Fifth Book of Peace, 2003
• To Be the Poet, 2002
• Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book, 1989
• Hawai'i One Summer, 1987
• China Men, Knopf, 1980
• The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts, 1976

Recognition&Awards

Kingston received many awards for her contribution to the Asian American literature, including General Nonfiction Award: National Book Critics Circle for The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts in 1976, American Book Award for General Nonfiction for China Men, Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters: National Book Foundation in 2008. She was awarded the 1997 National Humanity Medal by President of the United States President Bill Clinton.

Influences

Kingston’s novel, The Woman Warrior, overthrow the stereotypes of Americans to Chinese women as either evil Dragon Lady or fragile China Dolls. She has contributed to the feminist movement with such works as her novel The Woman Warrior, which discusses gender and ethnicity and how these concepts affect the lives women. Her works are highly acclaimed by the American mainstream literary scholars. In 1980s, she brings forward the concept of “Global Novel”, which makes big impact on the conventional “great American novels”. She protests the cultural misunderstanding of Asian American literature, which becomes a mainstream of Asian American literature. She is also an anti-war activist, who was arrested by participating in an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. Kingston’s work also received criticism, especially from some members of the Chinese American community, but it does not affect Kingston becomes the number one A/PIA writers of all time. (Wikipedia)

No.2 Jhumpa Lahiri

http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/jhumpalahiri/

Introduction

Jhumpa Lahiri was an Indian American writer and a Pulitzer Prize winner. She was born in London and raised in Rhode Island. Lahiri graduated from Barnard College in 1989 and then received multiple degrees from Boston University. She married in 2001 and lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and two children.

Selected Works

• Interpreter of Maladies, 1999
• Unaccustomed Earth, 2008
• The Namesake , 2003
• "Nobody's Business”, 2001
• "Year's End" (24 December 2007, The New Yorker)

Recognition&Awards

Lahiri’s debut collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award and The New Yorker Debut of the Year. Her novel The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was selected as one of the best books of the year by USA Today and Entertainment Weekly.

Influences

Lahiri is a well-known and respectful Asian American writer who won Pulitzer Prize as well as other important awards in America. Her debut novel, interpreter of Maladies address “sensitive dilemmas in the lives of Indians or Indian immigrants, with themes such as marital difficulties, miscarriages, and the disconnection between first and second generation United States immigrants.” Her works are influential in both American and India. Although Lahiri identifies herself as an American, she focuses on the living conditions of Indian immigrants and their confusion about their identities. Her second collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth achieved Number 1 on The New York Times Best seller’s list. She makes the American to pay attention to the lives of Indian Americans as well as other Asian American community. Her success has motivated numerous Asian Americans. (Wikipedia)