The Southern Discourse in Sinophone Literature: Moving Borders

by Chia-rong Chia-rong Wu (Editor), Min-xu Zhan (Editor), Alison Groppe (Editor), Yenna Wu (Editor)

Overview

This book delves into the evolving Southern discourse in Sinophone literature and explores its significance in the global context. Examining the Southern discourse not just within mainland China but also in the geographically and culturally southern regions, including Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Australia, this book analyses various critical themes, including transnational migration, racial dynamics and stereotypes, gender politics, indigenous awareness, cultural hybridity, and global connections between the South and North. Challenging existing frameworks and providing innovative perspectives on Sinophone literature’s Southern discourse, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese literature, Asian literature and comparative literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032968186
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/12/2025
Series:	Routledge Research on Asian Literature
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Chia-rong Wu is an Associate Professor (Reader) in the Department of Global, Cultural, and Language Studies at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Min-xu Zhan is an Associate Professor and Chair of Taiwan literature at National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan.

Alison Groppe is an Associate Professor of Chinese in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Oregon, USA.

Yenna Wu is a Professor of Chinese, Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Chinese Program Director at the University of California, Riverside, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction: On the Sinophone South   Part One: Hybrid Identities and Transnational Exchanges in the South   1. Taiwan in Relations: Reclaiming Austronesian Commons   2. Toward a Practice of Minority Discourse: The Global South in the Literary Works of Lan Xiaolu and Lian Mingwei   3. Progress and Regress: Sinophone Women Writers of Singapore   4. Living Between “Imagined Communities”: Identity Construction in Sinophone Literature in Thailand   5. Sinophone Southern Cross: Australian Eros at the Turn of the Millennium   Part Two: Southern Marginality, Migration, and Translation  6.  Marginality, Precarity, and Resilience in Li Zishu’s Sinophone South   7.  Curry Rice and Li Ang’s Crafting of Transcultural Hybridity   8.  Cultural Orphans in the Sinophone South: The Discursive Resonance Between Kuo Pao Kun and Wang Anyi in the 1990s   9.  A Good Life in the Southern World: Lung Ying-tai’s At the Foot of Mount Kavulungan and Walking: A Practice of Solitude   10. The Other Migrant in Mahua Literature: Indians in Shang Wanyun’s “Mubanwu de Yinduren” as a Case Study   Part Three: Comparative Poetics in the Southern World   11. Southern Sentiments, Northern Gaze: Yang Mu and the Question of Southern Discourse   12. The Northern Island Center, West, and South: The Question of Context and Bei Dao’s Sidetracks as Chinese, Asian American, and Hong Kong Sinophone Poetry   13. The Migration of Cantophone Writers: Deviating from the Southbound Route of the Wang Tao Mode   14. A “Compass” for Sinophone Poetry: Hong Kong Literary Journals and Community Across Translingualism   15. Macau: Where North Meets South

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Southern Discourse in Sinophone Literature: Moving Borders

"Cogently argued and theoretically textured, this path-breaking collection advances an incisive framework that pushes against the limits of Western-centric and China-centric conceptions of identity, marginality, hybridity, and global belonging. “The Sinophone South” coheres around a neglected terrain of geopolitical exclusion, upends dominant notions of cultural demarcation, and will forever redefine the literary gravitation of texts hailing from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, the Austronesian Pacific, Asian America, and beyond."

Howard Chiang, author of Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific

Praise for The Southern Discourse in Sinophone Literature: Moving Borders

"Cogently argued and theoretically textured, this path-breaking collection advances an incisive framework that pushes against the limits of Western-centric and China-centric conceptions of identity, marginality, hybridity, and global belonging. “The Sinophone South” coheres around a neglected terrain of geopolitical exclusion, upends dominant notions of cultural demarcation, and will forever redefine the literary gravitation of texts hailing from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, the Austronesian Pacific, Asian America, and beyond."

Howard Chiang, author of Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific

From the Publisher