ABSTRACT
This chapter considers methods for reading the genre of the forced confession across various registers of life writing, from the forced confessions and testimonials that emerged during the Cambodian genocide and the Vietnam War era, to the contemporary literary fiction by Asian diasporic authors that take up these historical contexts. This method seeks to move beyond oversimplified paradigms of ethnic authenticity in which texts by diasporic authors are simply dismissed, on the one hand, as mere testimonials that lack historical, literary, or aesthetic value or, on the other hand, as inauthentic appropriations of marginalised experience.
