Understanding Maxine Hong Kingston

Abstract

The first book-length work to examine the entirety of Kingston's unique literary career Maxine Hong Kingston is known for using a distinctive blend of autobiography, fantasy, and folklore to explore the history, experience, and identity of Chinese Americans. This is exemplified in her first book, The Woman Warrior, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction, a best seller, and a staple on college and university syllabi. Although The Woman Warrior is by far her most celebrated book, Kingston has penned a wide range of essays, fiction, and poetry, including China Men, Tripmaster Monkey, Hawai'i One Summer, To Be a Poet, The Fifth Book of Peace, I Love a Broad Margin to My Life, and the edited volume Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace. Understanding Maxine Hong Kingston is the first book-length work to examine the entirety of Kingston's literary career, from The Woman Warrior to her most recent volume of poetry. Julia H. Lee weaves together scholarly assessments, interviews, biographical information, and her own critical analysis to provide a complete and complex picture of Kingston's works and its impact on memoir, feminist fiction, Asian American literature, and postmodern literature. Lee examines the influence that previous generations of Asian American authors, feminism, and antiwar activism have had on Kingston's work. Offering important contextual information about Kingston's life, Lee shows how it has so often served as a starting point for Kingston's writing. She also studies Kingston's complex attitudes toward genre and her ever-evolving identity as a novelist, essayist, memoirist, and poet. A comprehensive bibliography of critical secondary sources will be an invaluable resource for readers and critics of Kingston's works.