Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History - Softcover

Praise for Charlie Chan

“An ingenious and absorbing book that provides a convincing new mode for examining the Chinese experience through both Chinese and Western eyes. It will permanently change the way we tell this troubled yet gripping story.” ―Jonathan Spence, author of The Search for Modern China and Return to Dragon Mountain

“Huang’s deft and witty recounting of how Hollywood transformed a real-life detective from Hawaii into one of the most recognizable―and problematic―racial icons in movie history tells us much that we need to know about America’s engagement with race and identity in the twentieth century. Race was clearly more than black and white, a thing to keep in mind as we move through our increasingly multicultural century.” ―Annette Gordon-Reed, author of The Hemingses of Monticello

“Provocative and unique, Charlie Chan expands the yellowface debate with mischievous humor and a compelling sense of irony. In bringing the actual Honolulu detective, Chang Apana, and his distorted Hollywood reflections to vivid life, Yunte Huang opens up important historical perspectives that have gone previously unexamined.” ―Jessica Hagedorn, author of Dogeaters and editor of Charlie Chan Is Dead

“A significant work of American history written in a stimulating and masterful way. Most impressive is Yunte Huang’s ability to create a nuanced cultural and racial history out of the fictional Charlie Chan.” ―Peter Kwong, author of The New Chinatown

“Yunte Huang’s gripping Charlie Chan is an exploration of the celebrated Chinese detective of popular fiction and film. Himself a brilliant sleuth, Huang follows a trail of clues that leads to Honolulu and the deeply impressive career of Chang Apana, the Chinese-born detective on whom the character was based. From here the story fans out to encompass a great swath of the social and literary cultures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the tangled experience of Asian immigration to the United States, and the tormented history of American race relations. Huang writes with rare personal intensity and capacious intelligence.” ―Stephen Greenblatt, author of Will in the World