THE WRITINGS OF LEE YAN PHOU AND JADE SNOW WONG: TRADITION IMITATION VS. SHAPING THE NEW TRADITION

Abstract

Purpose. The goal is to present the works of the first and second generation of Sino-American writers not as “duplication” and “imitating”the Euro-Atlantic literary tradition, but as creating the premise for the inception of new shapes (forms) of national literatures.

Research methods – historical-literary, analytical, comparative.

Results. American literature, written by authors of Asian descent, came to the attention of literary scholars when most of the writerswhose prose modern literary theorists associate with the genesis of the Asian-American canon were practically forgotten. Some passagesof their poetry and prose, written by the first and second generations of Asians in America, were presented only in the first anthologiesof Asian-American literature published in the 70s of the 20th century. But a truly profound reevaluation and conceptual-theoreticalevaluation of the work of American writers of Asian origin is taking place only now. The main goal of researchers of this motley wingof American literature at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, the implementation of which, by the way, is not always successfulat the end, lies in the taxonomy of those features that distinguish its American literature. This segregation occurs through the search for ties – in which their historical and cultural experience is interwoven – with the genre, plot, narrative traditions of the literatures of theircountries of origin. At the same time, it emphasizes its “secondariness”, “counterfeitness” in the general context of American literatureleads to the fact that the works of American writers of Asian origin find themselves tensed between two universes – the Euro-Atlanticand South-East Asian literary and artistic traditions.

Conclusions. This actually leads to the fact that any of the first Asian-American texts cannot be interpreted other than “covering oldgrounds”. Instead, literature, that, was born at the crossroads of traditions and cultures, should be set apart as one for which these traditionsare nourishing sources, and not a model norm. This will make it possible to see in Lee Yan Phou’s as well as in Jade Snow Wong’s writingsthe beginning of a new tradition through the rethinking and deconstruction of both the Euro-Atlantic and South-East Asian ones.