Kingston, Maxine Hong (1940—)

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Kingston, Maxine Hong (1940—)

Novelist Maxine Hong Kingston was born in the United States to Chinese immigrant parents. Her writing centers on the experience of Chinese-American culture and is part of a multiculturalist critique that challenges images which represent the culture of the United States as homogenous. Her first book, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts (1976), is an autobiography that details her own journey to integrate the Chinese and American elements in her life, interweaving them with a feminist perspective. In her books, the traditions of narrative are undermined, just as she undermines any one view of culture or history.

—Petra Kuppers

Further Reading:

Kingston, Maxine Hong. China Men. London, Picador, 1981

Lim, Shirley. Approaches to Teaching Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior. New York, Lang, 1991

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