Ideas of home

the long version

While there are a number of excellent works that focus on Asian American, Asian Canadian, and Asian British literature, most tend to deal exclusively with ethnicity; only occasionally, though inevitably, do they cross over into a direct exploration of topics and themes deriving from the immigrant experience and the subsequent quest for "home". Ideas of Home, however, focuses on the specific theme in recent literature; it explores the many challenges to Asian immigrants' sense of self and their conceptions of home. As they emerge from the discussions presented in this collection, the experiences of leaving home and arriving in a new place - and the descriptions of them in literature - are ancient ones that demand self-redefinition and resolution before the "new places" can be sincerely embraced as "home."