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Asian Heritage in Canada
Authors
Chao, Lien
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Poet, anthologist and critic,
Lien Chao was born in China in 1950 and came to Canada in
1984 to study Canadian literature. She eventually completed
both M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at York University. Her Ph.D.
dissertation is an examination of Chinese-Canadian literature
and it formed the basis for her book of literary criticism
Beyond Silence. Chao continues to
live in Toronto.
Lien Chao has also edited two art books on the Chinese-Canadian painter Peng Ma, and the Chinese painter Wang Dehui. Both works were published in Sept. 2008 by TSAR. |
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Poetry
Maples and the Stream: A Narrative Poem
Toronto: TSAR, 1997.
Publisher's Synopsis
This long narrative poem in English and Chinese follows
one woman's journey from China to Canada over four decades.
In these pages the two languages sit side by side, mirroring
each other, each telling a tale that alternates between confusion
and despair and hopes and dreams. Lien Chao depicts the struggle
of a generation in its persistent search for freedom and for
free artistic expression. |
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Poetry
More Than Skin Deep Poem
Toronto: TSAR, 2004.
Publisher's Synopsis
In these poems, created in both English and Chinese, Lien Chao evokes the lives of Asian Canadians in all their diversity and depth, as she reflects on the issues of identity, assimilation and language.
These issues occur in the very act of confronting the two very different languages—Chinese and English—with each other, so that that confrontation itself becomes a metaphor for adaptation and conflict of cultures in Canada.
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Fiction (Short stories)
The Chinese Knot: And Other Stories
Toronto: TSAR, 2008.
9th floor PS8555 .H3955 C44 2008
Publisher's Synopsis
In Chinatown and mixed neighbourhoods, in condos and tenements, in public parks and in college, the protagonists of these stories find love, face loneliness, confront family crises, and overcome racism as they evolve and grow in this exciting, ever-changing multicultural society. |
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Non-fiction (Memoir)
Tiger Girl = Hu Nü: A Creative Memoir
Toronto: TSAR, 2001.
7th floor HQ1767 .C435 2001
Publisher's Synopsis (from its website)
A gripping creative memoir of growing up in Mao's China in
the latter part of the twentieth century. |
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Non-fiction
Beyond Silence: Chinese Canadian Literature in English
Toronto: TSAR, 1997.
9th floor PS8089.5
.C47 C52 1997
Publisher's Synopsis
This study of the literary output in English by Chinese Canadians
begins with the 130-year history of the community in Canada
to consider first how institutional racism and neglect contributed
to its collective silence in mainstream media, history, and
mythology; since the 1970s a fully developed Chinese literary
consciousness and historical awareness have emerged in the
country.
Awards and Honours
1997 Gabrielle
Roy Prize for criticism (Winner)
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