AustLit

The article argues that ethnic and sexual stereotypes and other homogenising factors imposed from the outside constitute one of the most potent factors in diasporic communities. 'Diasporic writers play important roles in the negotiation of ethnic stereotypes, challenging, debating or reinforcing them in their texts and, often beyond their control, becoming objects of further image-production at the hands of publishers, readers and critics' (42-43).Chinese-Australian writer Ouyang Yu and Canadian writer Everlyn Lau are used as examples to illustrate this process.