Ecocriticism and Asian American Literature: Gold Mountains,
Weedflowers, and Murky Globes offers an ecocritical reinterpretation of
Asian American literature. The book considers more than a century of
Asian American writing, from Eaton's Mrs. Spring Fragrance (1912) to
Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being (2013), through an ecocritical
lens*.* The volume explores the most relevant landmarks in Asian
American literature: the first-contact narratives written by Bulosan,
Kingston, Mukherjee, and Jen; the controversial texts published by Sui
Sin Far (Edith Eaton) at the time of the Yellow Peril; the rise of
cultural nationalism in the 1970s and 1980s, illustrated by Wong's
Homebase and Kingston's China Men; old and recent examples of
"internment literature" dealing with the incarceration of Japanese
Americans during WWII (Sone, Houston, Miyake, Kadohata); and the new
trends in Asian American literature since the 1990s, exemplified by
Yamashita's and Ozeki's novels, which explore the challenges of our
transnational, transnatural era. Begoña Simal-González's ecocritical
readings of these texts provide crucial interdisciplinary insights,
addressing and analyzing important narratives within Asian American
culture and literature.