Salem Press

American Ethnic Writers
Publisher's Note

Diverse ethnic literatures are more than ever a mainstay of the high school and undergraduate curriculum. This edition of American Ethnic Writers covers not only the core writers and the classics of African American, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, Jewish American, and Native American novels, short stories, plays, and poetry--but many recent voices as well. These volumes offer authoritative coverage, essential for the school and college library shelf.

This significantly expanded edition more than doubles the length of the original two-volume set (published in 2000) by adding a third volume: 89 new authors have been added to the original 136, and 493 works have been added to the original 217, for a total coverage of more than 700 literary works. Material has been added from the best of Salem's previously published essays in Critical Survey of Drama, Second Revised Edition (2003), Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Second Revised Edition (2000), Critical Survey of Poetry, Second Revised Edition (2002), Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition (2003), Magill Book Reviews (online), Magill's Survey of American Literature (2006), Masterplots II, African American Literature Series (1994), Masterplots II, Women's Literature Series (1995), Notable African American Writers (2006), and Notable Latino Writers (2005). In addition, new material has been added: All listings of the authors' works and the "Suggested Readings" have been updated, and the biographies of many authors who have recently died as well as those still living have been updated as well.

The result is a fully current collection, in one compact set, of the best of our coverage of the most important ethnic literary voices--ranging from the Harlem Renaissance through the blossoming of Chicano literature to contemporary American ethnic and multiethnic voices in the twenty-first century. All major American minority cultures are covered: African American, Asian American, Jewish American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American; the set also includes 94 women. The authors represented here are identified with one or more of the following ethnicities: African American (103), Caribbean (6), Chilean American (1), Chinese American (14), Cuban American (7), Dominican American (1), Filipino American (4), Japanese American (7), Jewish American (31), Korean American (1), Mexican American (24), Native American (20), Peruvean American (2), Puerto Rican (12), South And Southeast Asian American (6), Spanish American (1), and Vietnamese American (1).

The works covered are equally diverse in genre, falling into one or more of the following categories: autobiographies and biographies (43), children's and young adult literature (7), drama (71), essays (35), ethnography (1), family histories (2), history (3), letters (2), memoirs (13), novellas (5), novels (259), philosophy (1), poetry (159), short fiction (99), social criticism (10), sociological study (1), and speeches (3).

Arranged alphabetically by author, each essay begins with the name of the writer as best known; any "also known as" name (such as a birth name or pseudonym); an identification of the author's ethnicity or ethnicities (e.g., Japanese American); a summary description of the writer's significance; birth date and place; and death date and place (if applicable). The text of each essay opens with a biographical sketch, which includes a guide to the pronunciation of the author's name, if difficult to pronounce. There follow one or more analytical sections focusing on up to ten of the author's best-known and most often studied works. For each of these core novels, plays, short stories, or poems, we list the work's title, genre, and year of publication, followed by at least a page of analysis. A fully updated "Suggested Readings" section, which closes every essay, lists up to a dozen print resources for further study. Altogether, more than 1,500 additional reading sources are listed. Finally, each essay is signed by the academicians and other experts who contributed it.

Volume 3 concludes with a General Bibliography and a list of Web Sites for further study, as well as five indexes: Author Index, Authors by Ethnic Identity, Titles by Ethnic Identity, Titles by Genre, and a straight alphabetical Title Index. These indexes are designed to give students and others the greatest variety of access to the essays' coverage. In addition, the front matter to each volume provides a Complete List of Contents.

We are indebted to the more than 280 scholars who contributed to the revised edition; their names and affiliations are found in the list of contributors that follows.