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Abstract
With wry humour, Shakespearean profundity and trenchant insight, Yunte Huang brings to life the story of the famous Siamese twins.
Twins Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1874), conjoined at the sternum by a band of cartilage and a fused liver, were “discovered” in Siam by a British merchant in 1824. Yunte Huang depicts the twins, arriving in Boston in 1829, first as museum exhibits but later as financially savvy showmen.
Their rise from freak-show celebrities to rich southern gentry; their marriage to two white sisters, resulting in twenty-one children; and their owning of slaves is here not just another sensational biography but an excavation of America’s historical penchant for finding feast in the abnormal, for tyrannising the “other”—a tradition that, as Huang reveals, becomes inseparable from American history itself.
Twins Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1874), conjoined at the sternum by a band of cartilage and a fused liver, were “discovered” in Siam by a British merchant in 1824. Yunte Huang depicts the twins, arriving in Boston in 1829, first as museum exhibits but later as financially savvy showmen.
Their rise from freak-show celebrities to rich southern gentry; their marriage to two white sisters, resulting in twenty-one children; and their owning of slaves is here not just another sensational biography but an excavation of America’s historical penchant for finding feast in the abnormal, for tyrannising the “other”—a tradition that, as Huang reveals, becomes inseparable from American history itself.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. |
| Number of pages | 416 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780871404473 |
| Publication status | Published - Jan 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award 2018.Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Inseparable : the original Siamese twins and their rendezvous with American history'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Activities
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Booktalk at Library : Inseparable : the original Siamese twins and their rendezvous with American history
HUANG, Y. (Speaker)
11 Mar 2019Activity: Talks or Presentations › Other Invited Talks or Presentations