The Transformation of the Image of the East in American Literature: Hemingway’s China Experience and Asian American Literature

Abstract

This article examines representations of the East in American literary and journalistic discourse through Ernest Hemingway's China experience and selected scholarship on Asian American literature. It asks how representational change relates to the position of the speaking subject, genre, historical context, and cultural memory. The study uses an interpretive narrative review and comparative synthesis rather than an exhaustive literary corpus. Edward Said's concept of Orientalism is considered alongside Homi Bhabha's hybridity, Stuart Hall's diasporic identity, and Lisa Lowe's account of heterogeneity. Hemingway's 1941 journey is approached as a case of external observation shaped by wartime journalism and political mediation. Asian American writing is discussed as a diverse field in which migration, family memory, racialisation, and self-representation intersect. The synthesis suggests that change involves expanding questions of representational authority and belonging, rather than replacing one unified image of the East with another. It rejects both a linear progression from outsider representation to authentic self-expression and a direct influence connecting Hemingway to later writers. The article proposes a comparative framework attentive to historical context, genre differences, and diversity within communities, while acknowledging the limits of its selected materials.