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Biography
American

Frank Chin

1940

Chinese American playwright, novelist, and essayist who was the first Asian American playwright to have a major production in New York — The Chickencoop Chinaman (1972) at the American Place Theatre. A fierce polemicist and controversial figure, Chin co-edited Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers (1974), the foundational anthology of Asian American literature, and wrote combative essays attacking what he saw as the 'fake' Asian identity presented by writers like Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan.

Past sales0
PeriodContemporary
NationalityAmerican
1. Biography

A short life of the author

Frank Chin (born 1940 in Berkeley, California) is a Chinese American writer whose combative, uncompromising work helped define — and fiercely contest — the boundaries of Asian American literature. His play The Chickencoop Chinaman (1972) was the first play by an Asian American to be produced in a mainstream New York theatre, and The Year of the Dragon (1974) followed at the American Place Theatre.

Major Works

Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers (1974, Howard University Press, co-edited with Jeffery Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong) — the landmark anthology that established Asian American literature as a literary category. The editors’ combative introduction argued that Asian Americans had been silenced and emasculated by both white racism and assimilationist Asian American writing.

Chin’s novels — Donald Duk (1991) and Gunga Din Highway (1994) — draw on Chinese mythology and Cantonese opera to construct a distinctively masculine Chinese American identity. His essays attacking Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan for what he considered distortions of Chinese culture provoked fierce debates within Asian American literary studies.

Collecting Chin

Aiiieeeee! (1974, Howard University Press) first editions are the key collectible — scarce and valued at $100–$300. The Chickencoop Chinaman and The Year of the Dragon (1981, University of Washington Press) collects both plays. Chin’s novels, published by Coffee House Press, had small printings.