A few years ago, Pro Se Productions released ‘Black Pulp’, a collection of stories written in the pulp style featuring characters of African descent. The publisher is doing it again, this time with its new book, ‘Asian Pulp’.
Pro Se Productions has rounded up seventeen writers from the print and digital worlds to bring the tales to readers.
‘Asian Pulp’ includes works from Don Lee, Naomi Hirahara, Kimberly Richardson, Percival Constantine, William F. Wu, Gary Phillips, Calvin McMillin, Mark Finn, Dale Furutani, Steph Cha, Henry Chang, Sean Taylor, Gigi Pandian, Louise Herring-Jones, Alan J. Porter, and David C. Smith. The anthology opens with an introduction from Leonard Chang.
Leonard Chang, novelist and writer and co-producer of the TV crime drama ‘Justified’, writes in the introduction, “The world of pulp fiction was a world that I understood—it was a reaction to trauma, both as art and as catharsis. Personal trauma. Emotional trauma. Physical trauma. National trauma. This is why I responded to it, why I immersed myself in it. And why, whenever I was in a personal and artistic crisis, it saved me. Fiction is a reflection of and commentary on life, and I needed to find a reflection of and commentary on my life.
That there weren’t any Asian Americans in the pulp I was reading wasn’t a problem (or if there were Asians they tended to be dismissible stereotypes) — no, not a problem at all, but actually an opportunity. I’ve always viewed writing as providing myself with more reading material. I write what I can’t find out there. Why not have a Korean American act as a private eye, and infuse in his character all the traits I wanted to see but haven’t? Why not write about Korean American gangsters, criminals, and detectives? And this is where we, as writers, all began moving toward: writing about people we want to see on the page, in lives and stories that speak to us.”
The cool part about this collection is the stories aren’t detective noir, Asian Pulp features western, mysteries, action and adventure and more.
Asian Pulp is available now from Amazon, and the Pro Se Productions store.
