Who am I?: An Autobiography of Emotion, Mind and Spirit (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography) Book

"A stunningly good book-entrancing, exciting, beautifully written, full of aperus that stimulate, tantalize, and fulfill. Perhaps it is enough to say that I like it even better than any of Tuan's already published books." -David Lowenthal, author of The Past Is a Foreign Country Who Am I? reveals the bittersweet success story of a Chinese-American who came to this country as a twenty-year-old graduate student and stayed to become one of America's best-known writers on cultural geography, landscape, nature, and environment. His autobiography is unique. No other tells a comparable story of a Chinese immigrant whose life in the American academic world mixes recognition, accolades, and even affection-all signs of success-with a deep sense of personal failure. At one level this is a chronicle of brilliant achievement, at another the story of descent from the "world stage" to privacy. Tuan's story progresses from a childhood in which his father hobnobbed with such Chinese leaders as Chou En-lai to an adulthood spent in a number of U.S. universities. His success in writing on themes of great interest to the general public curiously isolated him from his scholarly base in geography. At a more serious level, Tuan's bitterness lies in his belief in his own moral failings, his lack of courage-including the courage to be open about his homosexuality-resulting, as he writes, "in a life that is seamed in ambivalence-achingly empty at the core, despairingly alone, yet often content, occasionally even happy," as when he catches glimpses of heaven in his exploration of the beautiful and the good.Read More