Introduction. "We All Have Our Reasons"  1

Part I. Impositions of Form  

1. Theorizing Expectations  29

2. The Trope of the Lost Manuscript  59

3. Not Ethnic Literature  81

4. American Personhood  104

Part II. Lines of Flight  

5. Comics and the Changing Meaning of Race  127

6. Allegory and the Child in Jhumpa Lahiri's Fiction  152

7. Becoming Planetary  179

8. Desert–Orient–Nomad  197

Conclusion. World-Making  220

Acknowledgments  239

Appendix. Contemporary Asian American Literature 101  241

Notes  245

Works Cited  261

Index  271

"Min Hyoung Song makes a persuasive case for a return to deep reading: the careful, loving attention to the literary text, couched within a social and political consciousness. He reminds us of the beauty to be found within the pages of the Asian American novel, short story, and poem, as well as of the brilliant testimony embedded in those works, evidence of the experiences of both the children of 1965 and their parents. Song's ambitious book not only surveys the growing field of contemporary Asian American literature, but is itself a milestone in Asian American literary history."—Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America

"In this work of celebration and criticism, Min Hyoung Song charts a new path forward for engaging the latest—and the most successful—wave of Asian American literature. In addition to offering some amazing literary criticism and analysis, Song interviews some of today's most important Asian American writers to discuss their work and life. The resulting book is in equal measure a stunning work of literary criticism and a fascinating social commentary on how Asian American literature is produced and read."—Edward J. W. Park, coauthor of Probationary Americans: Contemporary Immigration Policies and the Shaping of Asian American Communities

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