Kingston, Maxine Hong (1940-…), is a Chinese American author known for writings that explore the experiences of Chinese immigrants in the United States. Her works employ history, legends, and autobiography.
Kingston gained recognition with her first book, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976). Her next book was a companion volume, China Men (1980). Both works portray the author facing conflicts between traditional Chinese family attitudes and the values of American society.
The Woman Warrior deals with Kingston’s own childhood as well as the lives of other women in her family. In the book, Kingston’s mother narrates many instructional stories. Kingston’s father is the main character in China Men. The book covers several generations of Chinese men struggling to survive in harsh living and working conditions in North America and Hawaii.
In her first novel, Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1989), Kingston blends humor with Chinese history and mythology. Set in the 1960’s, the novel describes the madcap adventures of a young Chinese American named Wittman Ah Sing. A second novel, The Fifth Book of Peace (2003), mixes fiction with autobiography. Kingston’s nonfiction pieces have been collected in Hawai’i One Summer (1987) and To Be the Poet (2002). I Love a Broad Margin in My Life (2011) is a book-length memoir written in verse.
Maxine Ting Ting Hong was born on Oct. 27, 1940, in Stockton, California. Her parents were born in China. Her father immigrated to the United States in 1924, operating a laundry for 15 years before bringing his wife to join him. Maxine married Earll Kingston, an actor, in 1962. She received an A.B. degree from the University of California in 1962. She has taught at numerous high schools and universities throughout her career, including the University of Hawaii, also spelled University of Hawai‘i; Eastern Michigan University; and the University of California at Berkeley.
