This fascinating autobiography offers not a success story; nor a paean to the resilience of the human spirit; nor a search for identity constrained by class, race, and gender or the other usual suspects; nor a tearjerker that engenders in the Western reader a sense of superiority or schadenfreude. Rather, it is a tale of the joys and hardships of simple living, of an enduring curiosity about the world, of teachers and friends, of marriage and divorce, of Chinese and American societies, of tofu and jalapeños, of character flaws and personality quirks, of humbug and folly.
Xiuwu R. Liu
Dr Xiuwu R. Liu studied English at Hunan University in Changsha, contemporary American society at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, American studies at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, and the philosophy and methodology of cross-cultural inquiry as well as modern China at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Since 1994 he has been an assistant professor of interdisciplinary studies at Miami University in Oxford, USA. Liu is a member of the American Philosophical Association. His previous books include Western Perspectives on Chinese Higher Education (Fairleigh Dickinson, 1996), Jumping into the Sea (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), Wandering from China to America (1st ed., Zip, 2006), Deflating Human Beings, corrected version, 4 vols. (2022) and Chinese Satire (2022).
| Delivery time | Delivery time 2-3 working days. |
| Number of Pages | 304 |
| | 2. Edition |
| Type | Paperback |
| Format | 210,0 mm x 178,0 mm |
| Publication date | 08.04.2024 |
| Language | English |
| ISBN | 978-3-8382-1071-1 |
| Weight | 400 g |
| Product safety information (EU GPSR) | read more |
Xiuwu R. Liu's Wanderingfrom China to America: A Life Straddling Different Worlds fundamentally reconfigures the autobiographical project. It operates at the intersection of multiple life writing subgenres, exemplifyinga situated subjectivity characteristic of contemporary autobiography — a self c onstructed through distinct historical, cultural, and institutional contexts. Within it, I see a rich and diverse archive of self-representation that encompasses reflections on cross-cultural experiences, pedagogical insights, and critiques of institutions. In this sense, the book offers a fresh rejoinder to the Western autobiographical tradition — from the oldest type of confessional introspection to the contemporary memoir's therapeutic ethos — by turning the autobiographical gaze outward toward institutional structures and cultural assumptions. Liu's approach creates a critical intervention that transforms our understanding of what autobiography can do and be in the contemporary moment.
—Ruth Y. Y. Hung, Hong Kong Baptist University, Life Writing, July 2025.
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