Five worlds from the man in the blue T-shirt: Interview with Russell C. Leong

ABSTRACT

This interview delves into Russell Leong’s complex coming-of-age as a Chinese American poet, influenced by US–Sino relations, the notorious Joseph McCarthy anti-Red and anti-China era of the 1950s, and the local status of being a person and writer of colour in a post-World War Two America during the past 70 years. The interview explores why Leong considers himself to be more a “man in a blue T-shirt” than a diasporic colonial in exile; how scholars in China view Chinese Americans, and Leong’s response in terms of his life, identity, and poetry; the relation between theory and practice in Leong’s work; how Chinese American works as “diasporic”; whether he was “orientalized” by studying Asian Americans; how he would characterize his own work; and how, as a fellow poet, Hart sees Leong’s work as a poet and visual artist. The interview ends with Hart’s “Musings on the Interview” and his sample close reading.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese American
• poetry
• diasporic
• orientalism
• east–west divide
• Russell Leong

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. This and other quotations in this interview constitute the first print publication of “Five Worlds”.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonathan Locke Hart

Jonathan Locke Hart – writer, historian, and literary scholar – received his PhD from Toronto in English and a PhD in history from Cambridge; he is fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, member of the Academia Europea; chair professor of the School of Translation Studies, Shandong University; fellow, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Victoria College, University of Toronto; associate, Harvard University Herbaria; and life member, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. He has held visiting appointments at Harvard, Cambridge, Princeton, the Sorbonne-Nouvelle (Paris III), Leiden, UC Irvine, Peking University, and elsewhere.