Maxine Hong Kingston Popular Books

Maxine Hong Kingston Biography & Facts

Maxine Hong Kingston (Chinese: 湯婷婷; born Maxine Ting Ting Hong; October 27, 1940) is an American novelist. She is a Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with a BA in English in 1962. Kingston has written three novels and several works of non-fiction about the experiences of Chinese Americans. Kingston has contributed to the feminist movement with such works as her memoir The Woman Warrior, which discusses gender and ethnicity and how these concepts affect the lives of women. She has received several awards for her contributions to Chinese American literature, including the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1981 for China Men.Kingston has received significant criticism for reinforcing racist stereotypes in her work and for fictionalizing traditional Chinese stories in order to appeal to Western perceptions of Chinese people. She has also garnered criticism from female Asian scholars for her "'over-exaggeration' of Asian American female oppression". Life and career Kingston was born Maxine Ting Ting Hong on October 27, 1940, in Stockton, California, to first-generation Chinese immigrants, Tom (d. 1991) and Ying Lan Hong. She was the third of eight children and the eldest of the six children born in the United States. In China, Tom Hong worked as a professional scholar and teacher in his home village of Sun Woi, near Canton. In 1925, Tom left China for the United States in search of better prospects. However, the U.S. in the early twentieth century was plagued with racist employment legislation and had little desire for a well-educated Chinese immigrant, and Tom was thus relegated to working menial jobs. He saved his earnings and became the manager of an illegal gambling house, which led him to get arrested numerous times. Tom "was canny about his arrests, never giving his real name and—because he apparently sensed that quite a few people thought that all Chinese looked alike—inventing a different name for each arrest. Consequently, he never acquired a police record in his own name." Tom was able to bring his wife over in 1940, and shortly thereafter, Kingston was born; she was named "Maxine" after a blonde patron at the gambling house who was always remarkably lucky. Kingston was drawn to writing at a young age and won a five-dollar prize from Girl Scout Magazine for an essay she wrote titled "I Am an American." She majored in engineering at The University of California, Berkeley, before switching to English. While she was in Berkeley, she met Earll. In 1962 she married Earll Kingston, an actor, and began a high-school teaching career. Their son, Joseph Lawrence Chung Mei, was born in 1963. From 1965 to 1967, Maxine taught English and mathematics at Sunset High School in Hayward, California. After relocating to Hawaii, her boredom in a lonely hotel 80 miles north of Oahu caused Maxine to begin writing extensively, finally completing and publishing her first book, The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, in 1976. She began teaching English at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa that same year. By 1981 she had moved on to teach at Berkeley.Her writing often reflects on her cultural heritage and blends fiction with non-fiction. Among her works are The Woman Warrior (1976), awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, and China Men (1980), awarded the National Book Award. She has written one novel, Tripmaster Monkey, a story depicting a protagonist based on the mythical Chinese character Sun Wu Kong. Her most recent books are To Be The Poet and The Fifth Book of Peace. A public television documentary produced by Joan Saffa, Stephen Talbot and Gayle K. Yamada, Maxine Hong Kingston: Talking Story, was released in 1990. Narrated by actor B.D. Wong and featuring notable Asian-American authors such as Amy Tan and David Henry Hwang, it explored Kingston's life, paying particular attention to her commentary on cultural heritage and both sexual and racial oppression. The production was awarded the CINE Golden Eagle in 1990. Kingston also participated in the production of Bill Moyers' PBS historical documentary, Becoming American: The Chinese Experience. Kingston was awarded the 1997 National Humanities Medal by President of the United States Bill Clinton. She was a member of the committee to choose the design for the California commemorative quarter. In 2003, Kingston was arrested in Washington, D.C. while protesting against the impending Iraq War. The protest, which took place on International Women's Day (March 8), was coordinated by the women-initiated organization Code Pink. Kingston refused to leave the street after being instructed to do so by local police forces. She shared a jail cell with authors Alice Walker and Terry Tempest Williams, who were also participants in the demonstration. Kingston's anti-war stance has significantly trickled into her work; she has stated that writing The Fifth Book of Peace was initiated and inspired by growing up during World War II. Kingston was honored as a 175th Speaker Series writer at Emma Willard School in September 2005. In April, 2007, Kingston was awarded the Northern California Book Award Special Award in Publishing for Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace (2006), an anthology which she edited. In July, 2014, Kingston was awarded the 2013 National Medal of Arts by President of the United States Barack Obama. In Spring 2023, Kingston was awarded the Emerson-Thoreau Medal for distinguished achievement in the field of literature by the American Academy of Arts & SciencesShe currently resides in Oakland, California where she is retired and maintains her garden. Influences In an interview published in American Literary History, Kingston disclosed her admiration for Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf, and William Carlos Williams, who were inspirational influences for her work, shaping her analysis of gender studies. Kingston said of Walt Whitman's work, I like the rhythm of his language and the freedom and the wildness of it. It's so American. And also his vision of a new kind of human being that was going to be formed in this country—although he never specifically said Chinese—ethnic Chinese also—I'd like to think he meant all kinds of people. And also I love that throughout Leaves of Grass he always says 'men and women,' 'male and female.' He's so different from other writers of his time, and even of this time. Even a hundred years ago he included women and he always used [those phrases], 'men and women,' 'male and female.' Kingston named the main character of Tripmaster Monkey (1989) Wittman Ah Sing, after Walt Whitman. Of Woolf, Kingston stated: I found that whenever I come to a low point in my life or in my work, when I read Virginia Woolf's Orlando, that always seems to get my life force moving again. I just love the way she can make one character live for four hundred years, and that Orlando can be a man. Orlando can be a woman. Virginia broke through co.... Discover the Maxine Hong Kingston popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Maxine Hong Kingston books.

Best Seller Maxine Hong Kingston Books of 2024

  • Stories of Resilience in Childhood synopsis, comments

    Stories of Resilience in Childhood

    Daniel D. Challener

    What helps a child overcome extraordinary obstacles? Why do some children surmount many difficulties and go on to live fulfilling lives while other children who face similar diffic...

  • China Men synopsis, comments

    China Men

    Maxine Hong Kingston

    The author chronicles the lives of three generations of Chinese men in America, woven from memory, myth and fact. Here's a storyteller's tale of what they endured in a strange new ...

  • Understanding Maxine Hong Kingston synopsis, comments

    Understanding Maxine Hong Kingston

    Julia H. Lee

    The first booklength work to examine the entirety of Kingston's unique literary careerMaxine Hong Kingston is known for using a distinctive blend of autobiography, fantasy, and fol...

  • Tripmaster Monkey synopsis, comments

    Tripmaster Monkey

    Maxine Hong Kingston

    One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 YearsDriven by his dream to write and stage an epic stage production of interwoven Chinese novelsWittman Ah Sing, a Chin...