"Don't even think about reading these new books at least, not unless they shape up real quick and start respecting the venerable genre distinctions of our forebears. The last thing we want to do is encourage the kind of troublingly seductive world they represent, in which memoir can just be mixed willy-nilly with fiction, and history, and fantasy and philosophy and well, you get the idea. We teeter on the cusp of utter madness."
"Looking for Tank Man, by Ha Jin Jin Xuefei had been in the U.S. for what was to be a temporary stay, pursuing graduate studies after his time in the Chinese army, when tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square in 1989. He never returned to China; he began writing in English as Ha Jin, condemned Chinese censorship and claimed several of America's highest regarded literary prizes."
Genre distinctions are being increasingly blurred as contemporary books mix memoir, fiction, history, fantasy, and philosophy, challenging traditional labels. Six recent releases exemplify spirited engagement with genre expectations while often displacing conventional labels. Looking for Tank Man recounts a Chinese graduate student's research into the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, reflecting Ha Jin's exile, his shift to writing in English, his condemnation of Chinese censorship, and his literary recognition in the United States. Bad Bad Girl occupies an ambiguous space between memoir and novel, offering a candid, partly fabricated portrait of a fraught mother-daughter relationship.
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