grammar is an invisible net in the air,
holding your
words in place. grammar, like wealth,
belongs in the hands of
the people who produce it. (29)The collection’s penultimate cluster of poems
grapples with the sometimes uncomfortable yet
beautifully complex in-between space of being
marked as both Chinese and Canadian. The clos-
ing poems turn toward the body with a strong dose
of the erotic as Wong gives voice to lesbian desire.
Monkeypuzzle has been widely reviewed in fem-
inist, Asian-American, and leftist journals. Though
one critic suggests that a few poems in the volume
are prose pieces disguised as poems, most readers
agree that Wong’s writing is incisive and politically
urgent in its discussion of sweatshop labor, mail-
order brides, and discrimination against immi-
grants. Wong has received the Emerging Writers
Award from the Asian Canadian Writers Work-
shop and was nominated for the Lambda Literary
Award for poetry.
Bibliography
Wong, Rita. Monkey puzzle. Vancouver: Press Gang,
1998.
Mimi Iimuro Van Ausdall
Wong, Shawn (1949– )
Both an advocate of Asian-American studies and
a pioneer in defining Asian-American literature as
a literary tradition, Wong belongs to the vanguard
of Asian-American writers who began to publish
in the 1970s. He, however, differs from most of his
predecessors in his depiction of characters, situa-
tions, and sentiments that shatter the majority of
white stereotypes of Asian America. Wong’s dis-
tinctive style is marked by his preoccupation with
the establishment of an Asian-American male
identity and Asian-American aesthetics.
Born in Oakland, California, he was raised by
an engineer father and an artist mother in Berke-
ley. After finishing his undergraduate study at the
University of California, Berkeley, Wong started
writing his first novel, HOMEBASE, under Kay
Boyle’s supervision at San Francisco State Univer-
sity, where he received an M.F.A. in creative writ-
ing in 1974. Homebase won both the 1980 Pacific
Northwest Booksellers’ Award and the Washington
State Governor’s Writers Day Award. This recogni-
tion was followed by a National Endowment for
the Arts Creative Fellowship in 1981.
Wong’s second novel, AMERICAN KNEES, is a hu-
morous look at inter- and intraracial dating among
Asian Americans. The novel was later adapted into
a screenplay for Celestial Pictures. Wong has also
published poetry, essays, and reviews in numer-
ous periodicals and anthologies. He is the editor
or coeditor of several influential anthologies of
Asian-American literature including the widely
acclaimed Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian Ameri-
can Writers (1974) and The Big Aiiieeee! The His-
tory of Chinese America and Japanese America in
Literature (1991). He also coedited a special issue
of Asian-American prose work for Yardbird Reader
(1975), and Before Columbus Foundation Fiction/
Poetry Anthology: Selections from the American
Book Awards, 1980–1990. In 1996 Wong edited his
own anthology, Asian American Literature: A Brief
Introduction and Anthology. He is a recipient of a
Rockefeller Foundation residency in Bellagio, Italy.
Active in the Seattle arts community, Wong was
featured in the 1997 PBS documentary “Shatter-
ing the Silences.” He is at present a professor and
chairman of the department of English at the Uni-
versity of Washington.Bibliography
Chen, Chih-Ping. “Shawn Wong.” In Asian American
Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Source-
book, edited by Emmanuel S. Nelson, 391–397.
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000.
Kim, Elaine H. “Shawn Hsu Wong.” In Asian Ameri-
can Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and
Their Social Context, 194–197. Philadelphia: Tem-
ple University Press, 1982.
Utenberger, Amy L, ed. Who’s Who among Asian
Americans 1994–1995. Detroit: Gale Research,
1994.Su-lin Yu322 Wong, Shawn