Aiiieeeee!

An incendiary collection of fourteen groundbreaking masterworks in Asian American literature

In the eyes of mid-twentieth-century white America, “Aiiieeeee!” was the one-dimensional cry from Asian Americans, their singular expression of all emotions—it signified and perpetuated the idea of Asian Americans as inscrutable, foreign, self-hating, undesirable, and obedient. In this anthology first published in 1974, Frank Chin, Jeffery Chan, Lawson Inada, and Shawn Wong reclaimed that shout, outlining the history of Asian American literature and boldly drawing the boundaries for what was truly Asian American and what was white puppetry. Showcasing fourteen uncompromising works from authors such as Carlos Bulosan and John Okada, the editors introduced readers to a variety of daring voices.

Forty-five years later the radical collection continues to spark controversy. While in the seventies it helped establish Asian American literature as a serious and distinct literary tradition, today the editors’ forceful voices reverberate in contemporary discussions about American literary traditions. Now back in print with a new foreword by literary scholar Tara Fickle, this third edition reminds us how Asian Americans fought for—and seized—their place in the American literary canon.

Frank Chin is the author of the plays The Chickencoop Chinaman (1971) and The Year of the Dragon (1974), the novels Donald Duk (1991), Gunga Din Highway (1994), and The Confessions of a Number One Son (2015), and several other books of fiction and nonfiction.Chan Jeffery Paul :

Jeffery Paul Chan is the author of the novel Eat Everything Before You Die: A Chinaman In The Counterculture (UW Press, 2004). He co-founded of the Asian American studies department at San Francisco State University and taught in the department for more than 30 years.Inada Lawson Fusao :

Lawson Fusao Inada has published several books of poetry, including Legends from Camp (1994), which won an American Book Award. He was also named Oregon's fifth poet Laureate in 2006.Wong Shawn :

Shawn Wong is the author of the novels Homebase (1979), which won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and American Knees (1996). He is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Washington.Fickle Tara :

Tara Fickle is associate professor of Asian American studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of The Race Card: From Gaming Technologies to Model Minorities (NYU Press, 2019) and the coeditor of Made in Asia/America: Why Video Games Were Never (Really) About Us (Duke, 2024). She is also the foreword author for Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian American Writers (UWP, 2019).

Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong are the editors of Aiiieeeee! and The Big Aiiieeeee! As members of the Combined Asian Resources Project (CARP), they were instrumental in rediscovering many previously underappreciated works, including America Is in the Heart, No-No Boy, Nisei Daughter, and other classics. Tara Fickle is assistant professor of English at the University of Oregon.

"When it comes to Asian American fiction...you can't talk about the genre without talking about Aiiieeeee!...the first of its kind and a "key book" that reintroduced forgotten texts and writers when it was first published."

"That ‘whole voice’ which speaks so eloquently in Aiiieeeee! Is an amazingly versatile voice. It is a voice that makes one believe in writing again. . . . I herald it with rejoicing."

"A manifesto for an Asian American renaissance!"

"Illuminates areas of darkness in the hidden experiences of a people who have been little more than exotic figments of someone else’s imagination."