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Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (1905–1961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywood’s most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photos—with a touch of defiance—“Orientally yours.”

Now, more than a century after her birth, Yunte Huang narrates Wong’s tragic life story, retracing her journey from Chinatown to silent-era Hollywood, and from Weimar Berlin to decadent, prewar Shanghai, and capturing American television in its infancy. As Huang shows, Wong’s rendezvous with history features a remarkable parade of characters, including a smitten Walter Benjamin and (an equally smitten) Marlene Dietrich. Challenging the parodically racist perceptions of Wong as a “Dragon Lady,” “Madame Butterfly,” or “China Doll,” Huang’s biography becomes a truly resonant work of history that reflects the raging anti-Chinese xenophobia, unabashed sexism, and ageism toward women that defined both Hollywood and America in Wong’s all-too-brief fifty-six years on earth.

Prof. Huang Yunte received his BA in English from Peking University and Ph.D. in English from State University of New York at Buffalo. He taught at Harvard University from 1999 to 2003, before joining the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A Guggenheim Fellow, his books include Transpacific Imaginations; Chinese Whispers; Charlie Chan, which won the Edgar Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Inseparable: The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History, chosen by Newsweek as one of the Best Non-Fiction Books of 2018. Huang is also the editor of The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature, and the translator into Chinese of Ezra Pound's The Pisan Cantos.  As a bestselling author, he has been featured on CBS, National Public Radio (Fresh Air, Morning Edition, On Point), C-SPAN Book TV, BBC, Australian National Radio, Irish National Radio, and many others.

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