2013 Honorable Mention, Asian American Studies Association's prize in Literary Studies Part of the American Literatures Initiative Series Why do black characters appear so frequently in Asian American literary works and Asian characters appear in African American literary works in the early twentieth century? Interracial Encounters attempts to answer this rather straightforward literary question, arguing that scenes depicting Black-Asian interactions, relationships, and conflicts capture the constitution of African American and Asian American identities...

Weaves together scholarly assessments, interviews, biographical information, and the author's own critical analysis to provide a complete and complex picture of Maxine Hong Kingston's works and their impact on memoir, feminist fiction, Asian American literature, and postmodern literature.