Haunting in Chinese-Australian Writing

This book examines haunting in terms of trauma, languaging, and the supernatural in works by Chinese-Australian writers who were born in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore. It goes past the conventional focus on identity issues in the analysis of diasporic writing, considering how the memory of past trauma is triggered by abusive systems of power in the present. The author unpacks how trauma also brings past violence to haunt the present. Showing the supernatural as a social and cultural product, the book elucidates how haunting as the supernatural refers to the coexistence of, and the competition between, different cultures and powers. It takes a wide-ranging view of different diasporic communities under the banner ‘Chinese’, a term that refers not only to Chinese nationals in terms of citizenship, but also to the Chinese diaspora in terms of ancestry, and Chinese culture more generally. The book examines how different Chinese diasporic communities present a dynamic and multiple state through which different Chinese subcultures are partially erased by other cultures. In analyzing haunting in texts, the author positions Chinese culture as in a constant state of flux. Relevant to scholars in comparative literary and Chinese cultural studies with an interest in the Gothic and postcolonial traditions, this book is a novel perspective on Asian literary and cultural influences in Australia.