It was not until the 1976 publication of Maxine Hong Kingston's mystical memoir of her San Francisco childhood, The Woman Warrior, that Asian-American writers broke into mainstream American literature. Even so, ten more years had to pass until another Asian-American writer achieved fame and fortune. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan's first novel, sold an astonishing 275,000 hard-cover copies upon its 1989 publication. The success of Tan's book increased publishers' willingness to gamble on first books by Asian-American writers. Two years later, at least four other Chinese-American writers had brisk-selling books. Gus Lee's China Boy, for example, had an initial print run of 75,000, huge for a first-time author. His advance was nearly $100,000. The Literary Guild purchased the rights to the book; Random House did an audio version with M. Butterfly's B. D. Hong as the reader. Two publishers fought for the right to publish David Wong Louie's Pang of Love, a collection of short stories. Gish Jen's Typical American is an equally big hit.
At the same time, Japanese-American writers are flourishing. Perhaps not since the literary community "discovered" Jewish-American writers in the 1950s have we experienced such a concentrated ethnic wave. In part, this interest in Asian-American literature can be attributed to the near doubling of America's Asian-American population, from 3.5 million to 6.9 million in the past ten years. The fact remains, however, that more Asian-Americans are writing, and their books have a fresh and original voice.
