The persistence of "Cathay" in world literature

In his article "The Persistence of 'Cathay' in World Literature" Eugene Eoyang argues that China has only recently begun to occupy a place in world literatures as evidenced by the absence of Chinese literature from the early editions of the widely adopted Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces and its token representations in subsequent editions. "Orientalized" images of China still persist partly stemming from the continuing currency of stereotyped images of the Chinese promoted by publishers, by Western Sinologists, and even by expatriate Chinese. A cottage industry has developed which privileges the study of images of China (however distorted and oversimplified) over the often more intractable and less exotic complexities of Chinese literature and Chinese reality.