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Tseen Khoo
'“Commonplace and Pretentious”: Directing Asian-Australian Women's Writing'
Given the growing interest in Asian-Australian women's writing, it is an opportune time to examine the contentious ways in which this writing is being packaged and critiqued. In particular, this paper focuses on the (rather hostile) reception of Simone Lazaroo's second novel The Australian Fiancé and the critical commentary surrounding it which seems to owe much to preconceptions of what is 'expected' of ethnic women writers and their 'migrant' stories.
Asian-Australian writing is, according to Jane Sullivan of The Age, an 'established phenomenon' (10). Within this already narrowed category, Asian-Australian women's writing has produced much critique which engages with international discussions about Asian women's writing. This transnational critique often discusses Asian women's literature in terms of its (lack of) differentiation from clichéd 'confessional' narratives and the issue of authors' siting in the West (while criticising the 'East'). More recently, there are attempts to read certain themes across the ungainly field of 'diasporic Asian women's literature' which give rise to questions concerning context, economies of publishing, and cultural essentialism.
Described variously as 'pretentious,' 'flavour of the month,' 'languorous and lyrical,' and 'pseudo-poetic,' Lazaroo's most recent publication evoked distinct and often uncomplimentary responses. The main issues against the novel included the namelessness of the narrator and her fiancé, the lyrical style (or, as some have put it, 'a quagmire of narrative torpor' [Louis Nowra]), and consequences of reading the narrative within the category of 'love story' or romance. While not seeking to refute specific comments, I want to tease apart the assumptions inherent in these readings and examine what is implicitly 'required' of Asian-Australian women's writing.
Bio: Dr Tseen-Ling Khoo is a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland, Australia. She has published on Asian-Australian cultural production and politics, multicultural/race issues in Australia, and Asian-Canadian literature. She is author of Banana Bending: Asian-Australian and Asian-Canadian Literatures (McGill-Queens UP and Hong Kong UP: 2003). Tseen is co-editor of Diaspora: Negotiating Asian Australia (University of Queensland Press, 2000) and Culture, Identity, Commodity: Diasporic Chinese Literatures in English (Hong Kong UP and McGill-Queens UP, forthcoming 2003).
Her current research interests include formations of Asian diasporic literary studies and critically locating narratives of Asian-Australian heritage and history. She also manages the Asian-Australian academic discussion list.
<t.khoo@uq.edu.au>