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Alice Pung's Growing up Asian in Australia : The Cultural Work of Anthologized Asian-Australian Narratives of Childhood.
- Source :
- Prose Studies; Apr2013, Vol. 35 Issue 1, p67-83, 17p
- Publication Year :
- 2013
-
Abstract
- This paper examines the 2008 literary anthologyGrowing up Asian in Australia, edited by the young Australian writer and award-winning memoirist, Alice Pung. Featuring a collection of auto/biographically based prose, poetry, and comics by “Asian-Australian” authors, each short text within the anthology focuses on coming-of-age in modern-day Australia. Informed by auto/biography and Asian-Australian studies, this paper explores the cultural work that Pung's anthology aims to do. Through a reading of the anthology's paratexts as well as the short, individual childhood autobiographies, the discussion considers the strategies Pung employs in order to attract a broad readership, and how the anthology mobilizes life narratives of childhood to intervene in debates about Australian national, local, and personal identities at the start of the twenty-first century. I argue that Pung's text skillfully balances politics and populism, critiquing fundamental issues of national identity and self-representation while simultaneously appealing to a broad readership. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 01440357
- Volume :
- 35
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Prose Studies
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 87070531
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1080/01440357.2013.781412