Race Characters
Ethnic Literature and the Figure of the American Dream
By Swati Rana
272 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 10 halftones
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Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-5947-3
Published: November 2020 -
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-5946-6
Published: November 2020 -
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-5948-0
Published: October 2020 -
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-6050-7
Published: October 2020
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- Paperback $32.50
- Hardcover $99.00
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About the Author
Swati Rana is assistant professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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Reviews
âSwati Rana brilliantly breaks open the problem of the American dream as it relates to character. A dazzling work, Race Characters centers a literary corpus that dramatically unveils the privilege, burdens, and costs of pursuing the American dream. It also tackles an extensive historical array of exclusionary processes ranging from racial nativism to colonial subjection. This is an incandescent melding of narratological analysis, literary criticism, and comparative race studies.ââStephen Hong Sohn, University of California, Riverside
âFascinating, informed, and relevant, Race Characters prompts us to grapple with our blind spots around how we define our archives and how we engage as readers. Rather than solely celebrating or condemning problematic characters, Swati Ranaâs work theorizes these figures as narrative strategies that reveal the negotiations that immigrant writers have made in order to make sense of their own lives, be legible to mainstream audiences, and work under certain ideological and market pressures. A standout example of comparative ethnic scholarship.ââElda MarĂa RomĂĄn, University of Southern California
âRace Characters is a beautifully written, well-conceived, and astute new formalist analysis of character that transforms our understanding of minoritarian identity and ethnic literature. Swati Ranaâs pathbreaking study allows us to read âcharacterâ in a fuller sense and better grasp how minority identity is worked out through literary characterization.ââGary Totten, University of Nevada, Las Vegas