Alexander Kuo

Alexander Kuo (born 1941 (?) in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American teacher, poet, fiction writer, and essayist [Alex Kuo, "Damming the American West" (2003) http://www.bluefish.org/damming.htm] of Chinese-American ancestry. He received his B.A. from Knox College in 1961 [ Poet Alex Kuo Judges Writing Awards http://www.knox.edu/x4084.xml] where he studied with Sam Moon & Gogisi and M.F.A. from the University of Iowa where he studied with Donald Justice & Philip Roth. He is professor of English at Washington State University, which lists him as an example of their "world class faculty." [ Future Students: Why WSU? http://www.wsu.edu/future-students/why-wsu/wc_kuo.htm] and is the former chair of the Department of Comparative American Cultures [Natascha Karlova, "On Lipstick, Rodeo Queens, Creative Compatibility, and Making a Difference," "Ask. Magazine" WSU College of Liberal Arts (December 2002), p.15.] (now called Comparative Ethnic Studies). [ CAE Homepage http://libarts.wsu.edu/ces/] In 2001, WSU named him their first Writer-in-Residence. [WSU Press Release http://www.wsu.edu/NIS/releases4/skh109.htm (June 2001)]

He has won multiple National Endowment for the Arts grants, and has held numerous teaching fellowships in China, including a 1989 fellowship at Beijing University, Senior Fulbright Scholar at Changchun University in 1991-92, and a Lingnan Fellow in Hong Kong in 1997-98. He has held positions at numerous universities in China including Peking University, Beijing Forestry University, Jilin University, and Hong Kong Baptist University. In 2002-03 he held the Writer-in-Residence position with Mercy Corps. He is Washington State University's first Writer-in-Residence. He received a Rockefeller Foundation grant for a Bellagio residency in 2003-4. "Lipstick and Other Stories" won the American Book Award of the Before Columbus Foundation in 2002. [ ABE List of Winners http://www.bookweb.org/news/awards/1293.html]

His writing makes demands on the reader in a way comparable to Franz Kafka or Jorge Luis Borges. [Robert H. Abel, "Review of 'Lipstick and Other Stories'," "Asian Review of Books" (March 2001).]

He is a mentor to notable Native American writer Sherman Alexie. [WSU Press Release http://www.wsu.edu/NIS/releases2/ct102.htm (January 1999)]

Notes

Poetry

*"The Window Tree" (1974)
*"New Letters from Hiroshima, and Other Poems" (1974)
*"Changing the River" (1986)
*"This Fierce Geography" (1998)

Fiction

*"Chinese Opera" (novel, 1998)
*"Lipstick and Other Stories" (short stories, 2001)
*"Panda Diaries" (novel, 2006)

External links

* [http://www.alexkuo.org/ Official Alex Kuo Website]