Reimagining Home and Identity: Exploring New Voices in Chinese Diasporic Literature through a Comparative Study of Male Writers from Australia and New Zealand in the 21st Century

The purpose of this thesis is to illustrate a new direction in Chinese-Australian and Chinese-New Zealand literature by examining some new voices in contemporary ethnic Chinese male writing. By providing a contemporary picture of Chinese-Australian and ChineseNew Zealand male writing since the introduction of Chinese-Australian and Chinese-New Zealand creative writing as a category, it attempts to address the gap left by theabsence of attention given to male writers of Chinese ancestry in these two literatures. The research targets for this thesis are writers representing distinct narrative voices in the twenty-first century from different generations, such as Ouyang Yu, Stephen Chan, Tom Cho, and Chris Tse. Case studies of their representative works are used to delve into how these male writers depict their experiences of establishing homes in their host nations, as wellas their knowledge and construction of identities, with a focus on their masculinity. Attentive reading, comparison, and contrast of chosen texts from a range of genres, including poetry, short tales, and novels produced in the post-millennium, are provided. Specifically, I argue that ChineseNew Zealand or Chinese-Australian writing remains part of a literary diaspora, relating across numerous new worlds (including the United States) in comparable and significant ways, and to China as the common ancestral homeland. I also consider two alternative conclusions. Rather than focus on a diasporic model, it might plausibly be argued that Australia and New Zealand’s national literature has assimilated these new voices. Then again, one might prefer to argue that these four antipodean writers are following precedents set by Chinese-American texts, in which case the model would be one of globalisation, or another instance of the rule that American popular culture tends to become global culture. My conclusion does not entirely reject these alternatives, but I argue that the transnational diasporic model is more effective and capaciousthan others. Exploring the complexities and heterogeneity of contemporary Chinese diasporic male writing provides an understanding of how these male writers negotiate and transcend the existing power structure while articulating their concerns about belonging, identity, and homein a globalised world. Due to their flexible, multifaceted, and alternative self-awareness of masculinity, the ethnic Chinese male writing chosen for this thesis is different from the rather fixed and essentialist heroic masculinity tradition created by Chinese-American canonical writer Frank Chin. The two LGBTQ+ writers, Tom Cho, and Chris Tse, as racialised and sexualised subjects, clearly offer challenges to the gender and sexual normativity established by mainstream culture in these two nations. More surprisingly, perhaps, the voices of the two heterosexual writers, Ouyang Yu and Stephen Chan, differ significantly from the “collaged” narrative voice in popular ChineseAmerican writing. This further complicates the narrative pattern in Chinese diasporic male writing and pushes the frontiers of Chinese male writing in the twenty-first century

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