The Sinophone

Yucong Hao

Sinophone literature, a term coined by Shu-mei Shih in 2004, describes (per Shih) Sinitic-language literature written “on the margins of China and Chineseness.” As an emerging field of inquiry, the Sinophone provides a conceptual alternative to the paradigm of China-based national literary studies; as an organizing category, the Sinophone evinces the plurality of cultural identities, linguistic practices, and ethnicities of Sinitic-language communities around the world. It also crystallizes discussions—the destabilization of Chineseness in the era of transnationalization and the reflections on the hegemony of China and Sinocentric discourses—that have penetrated the field of Chinese studies since the 1990s.