'The making of the Asian Australian novel is the unmaking of oppressive notions of history, subjectivity and literary form. Locating ethnic representational politics within power structures of race and nation, this chapter contends that Asian Australian identity is a site of hybrid instability realised through nonlinear forms of storytelling. The chapter examines national and diasporic paradigms across historical and contemporary trajectories of this literature: earlier Chinese Australian novels that blur boundaries between fictional and factual claims; Bildungsroman novels that trouble ethnocentric narratives of either assimilation or return; multicultural novels that unveil ongoing racism in liberal-pluralist ideals; and transnational novels that reimagine the Australian relationship with postcolonial and globalising Asian modernity. Reflecting on the limits of a critical humanist agenda, the chapter identifies an alternative paradigm of Asian Australian storytelling that employs speculative tactics to depict the land, species, climate change and Asian–Indigenous connections. This ecocritical paradigm challenges a normative ideal of the modern, autonomous and sovereign individual as one the migrant subject should integrate into, while pointing to an under-explored terrain for Asian Australian writers whose focus on diversity and justice would offer important insights into the shifting human condition.'
Source: Author's summary.
'Problematics of filiation and affiliation underscore the Janus-faced diasporic sensibility of Yasmine Gooneratne, equipoised between the esoteric pull of the ancestral allegiances and the allure of a promising future in the new land. Gooneratne’s novel A Change of Skies (1991) explores the trajectory of journey and consequent experiences of two generations of diaspora. There is a constant negotiation of the emotional and the social, the cultural and the political.
'Exposed to European influence during colonial era, independent South Asian nations have been progressively impacted by forces of modernisation and Globalisation. Technological advancement revolutionised communication and opened the floodgates of cross-border movement owing to the opportunities generated. The floating population of transnationals constantly navigate the porous boundaries of filiation and affiliation. The body of literature produced by the diaspora is haunted by these contradictory allegiances, as is evident in the novels of Gooneratne. The paper attempts to interrogate Yasmine Gooneratne’s re-visioning of immigrant experiences from the vantage point of diasporic consciousness shaped by colonial/postcolonial island nation Sri Lanka and the settler colony of island continent Australia.' (Publication abstract)
