The Asian American Avant-Garde: Universalist Aspirations in Modernist Literature and Art

In this admirable, if sluggish, volume, Clark, an assistant professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy, explores the construction of Asian-American identity by Asian-American writers in the context of modernism; her subjects wrote during a period (1882–1945) notable both for fascination with “the Orient” and intense, often institutionalized, anti-Asian racial prejudice. She studies an eclectic, intriguing group of writers: Sui Sin Far, popular in regionalist magazines; Sadakichi Hartmann and Yone Noguchi, whose haiku poems may have influenced Ezra Pound and who wrote for several of the modernist “little magazines”; Dhan Gopal Mukerji and Younghill Kang, who brought Buddhist influences to their narratives; and Carlos Bulosan, who engaged Popular Front left-wing coalition politics in his semiautobiographical novel America Is in the Heart. Their works are likely to be lesser known or unknown to many readers, and afford Clark the chance to wrestle with issues of race, gender, class, and politics. The title’s reference to the arts is misleading, as contemporary movements such as cubism are explored only briefly. Clark’s writing is distinctly academic, and the tone will most likely hinder even the adventurous general reader—which is a shame, as the subject is a fascinating one and might have gained a wider readership. 10 b&w illus. [em](Oct.) [/em]