In the United States, Ishmael Reed, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ralph Ellison, N. Scott Momaday, Toni Morrison, Rudolfo
Anaya, Sandra Cisneros, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Jessica Hagedorn are among the notable writers of color who have
emerged since World War II. Although definitely individual and widely diverse, they are all-American in their collective
mixture of African American, Native American, Asian American, and Hispanic strains. The work of each, although
distinct, has not remained in cultural isolation but has enriched the inclusive literary treasury of the United
States.
This comprehensive, timely study by a British scholar closely examines their fiction and autobiographical writings
in cultural perspective. It analyzes the ways politics and popular tradition have influenced their work and the
ways these ethnic authors address and question such matters as whiteness, autobiography, geography, and the forms
of prose.
Other books have explored the variety of ethnic traditions in American literature, but this is the first to consider
them in comparative terms in a single volume. In focusing on these writers and their place in the context of American
history and contemporary popular culture, Multicultural American Literature underlines the reality that it is multicultural
writing that has revolutionized recent American literary history.
For those wishing clear and accurate perspective on the national literature of the present day, this informative
book analyzes the spectrum and provides an exact and faithful view of its multicultural character.