Maxine Hong Kingston's picture
3 followers

Maxine Hong Kingston


USA flag (b.1940)

She was born as Maxine Ting Ting Hong to a laundry house owner in Stockton, California. She was the third of eight children, and the first among them born in the United States. Her mother trained as a midwife at the To Keung School of Midwifery in Canton. Her father had been brought up a scholar and taught in his village of Sun Woi, near Canton. Tom left China for America in 1924 and took a job in a laundry.

Her works often reflect on her cultural heritage and blend 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), which was awarded the 1981 National Book Award. She has written one novel, Tripmaster Monkey, a story depicting a character based on the mythical Chinese character Sun Wu Kong. Her most recent books are To Be The Poet and The Fifth Book of Peace.

She was awarded the 1997 National Humanities Medal by President of the United States Bill Clinton. Kingston was a member of the committee to choose the design for the California commemorative quarter. She was arrested in March 2003 in Washington, D.C., for crossing a police line during a protest against the war in Iraq. In April, 2007, Hong Kingston was awarded the Northern California Book Award Special Award in Publishing for her most recent novel Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace (2006), edited by Maxine Hong Kingston.

She married actor Earl Kingston in 1962 (IMDb bio); they have had one child, Joseph Lawrence Chung Mei, born in 1964. They now live in Oakland.

Kingston was honored as a 175th Speaker Series writer at Emma Willard School in September 2005.
 
 
Novels
   Tripmaster Monkey (1989)
thumb
 
Collections
   To Be the Poet (poems) (2002)
thumb
 
Non fiction
Sorry, we're not listing non fiction by this author
 
Maxine Hong Kingston recommends
thumb
Forbidden City (2022)
Vanessa Hua
"In this intriguing and suspenseful story, Hua tells of a girl who becomes a lover and worshipper of Chairman Mao, plotting revolution after revolution. How to negotiate the maze of the Forbidden City? How to escape?"
thumb
Happy for You (2022)
Claire Stanford
"I felt happy for me, reading Happy for You. Claire Stanford tells the story of a young woman's quest for a meaningful life--for life at all--in this digital world. Whether she can find the joys and sorrows of the body--the physical, sexual body--makes for a compelling and insightful read."
thumb
The Cloister (2018)
James Carroll
"James Carroll has written an enlightening, vitally important book, a necessity for our time."

More recommendations 


Anthologies containing stories by Maxine Hong Kingston
thumb
Charlie Chan Is Dead (1993)
An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction
(Charlie Chan Is Dead, book 1)
edited by
Jessica Hagedorn

Visitors also looked at these authors


About Fantastic Fiction       Information for Authors