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

Winner of the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Book and Shortlisted for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography: "An ingenious and absorbing book It will permanently change the way we tell this troubled yet gripping story." Jonathan Spence

Hailed as irrepressibly spirited and entertaining (Pico Iyer, Time) and a fascinating cultural survey (Paul Devlin, Daily Beast), this provocative first biography of Charlie Chan presents American history in a way that it has never been told before. Yunte Huang ingeniously traces Charlie Chan from his real beginnings as a bullwhip-wielding detective in territorial Hawaii to his reinvention as a literary sleuth and Hollywood film icon. Huang finally resurrects the honorable detective from the graveyard of detested postmodern symbols and reclaims him as the embodiment of America s rich cultural diversity. The result is one of the most critically acclaimed books of the year and a deeply personal . . . voyage into racial stereotyping and the humanizing force of story telling (Donna Seaman, Los Angeles Times). 35 black-and-white illustrations