Anna Chan Chennault
Pioneer Chinese American Autobiographer
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11272046 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Helena Grice (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 136-155 |
| Publication date | 2017-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | MELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0163-755X • E-ISSN: 1946-3170 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/melus/mlx030 |
| OpenAlex | W2584088517 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 10 |
Anna Chan Chennault1 is well known for her long career as an internationally prominent socialite, a journalist on the renowned radio show “Voice of America,” and the diplomatic wife of the famous World War II Lieutenant-General and founder of the Flying Tigers Squadron, Claire Lee Chennault. This article will place her in an entirely different context. Chennault’s two English-language autobiographies, A Thousand Springs: The Biography of a Marriage (1962) and The Education of Anna (1980), form one of the earliest examples of a multivolume life writing project by an Asian American woman.2 These narratives document a colorful life: Chennault’s courtship and marriage in the glamorous and heady environment of Shanghai in 1947, her cosmopolitan young adulthood in Hong Kong and China, her early journalistic career against the backdrop of World War II, and her lively and high-profile time as a Washington political hostess and political figure who, among other things, facilitated Asian American diplomacy under Presidents John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan.
Art · Art history · Biography · China · Context (archaeology) · Diplomacy · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Wife · World War II · American Political and Social Dynamics · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Classics · Gender Studies · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |