M. Butterfly, Hwang's most famous play, was published by Plume Books in 1989. The story is about deception in love.

Playing as the other half of a double bill with Hwang's The Sound of a Voice was another short play called The House of Sleeping Beauties, which Hwang based on a short story by Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata. Kawabata's story was published in a collection bearing the same title in 1971. Another work by Kawabata that might shine more light on Japanese themes is his Beauty and Sadness (1981).

Maxine Hong Kingston is credited with opening up the market for other Chinese American authors with her Woman Warrior (1989), a story about the hardships of growing up in California.

For an overview of contemporary Asian Ameri-can authors, Jeffrey Paul Chan has edited a collection of works titled The Big Aiieeeee: An Anthology...