Kingston, Maxine Hong

Kingston, Maxine Hong
orig. Maxine Hong

born Oct. 27, 1940, Stockton, Calif., U.S.

U.S. writer.

Born to an immigrant family, she examined the myths, realities, and cultural identities of Chinese and American families and the role of women in Chinese culture in her fiction and nonfiction. Her widely admired The Woman Warrior (1976) and China Men (1980) blend fact and fantasy to tell aspects of her family's history.

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▪ Chinese-American author
born Oct. 27, 1940, Stockton, Calif., U.S.

      American writer, much of whose work is rooted in her experience as a first-generation Chinese American.

      Maxine Hong was the eldest of six American-born children of Chinese immigrant parents. Hong's father, a scholar, had left China in 1924 and immigrated to New York City; unable to find work as a poet or calligrapher, he took a job in a laundry. Hong's mother had remained behind in China and joined him in the United States in 1939.

      Hong attended the University of California, Berkeley, as a scholarship student, graduating in 1962. At Berkeley she met aspiring actor Earll Kingston. They were married in November 1962 and had a son in 1964. The couple taught at Sunset High School in 1966–67 in Hayward, California, then moved to Hawaii, where she held a series of teaching jobs for the next 10 years.

      In 1976 Kingston published her first book, Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. It combines myth, family history, folktales, and memories of the experience of growing up within two conflicting cultures. The book was an immediate critical success, winning the 1976 National Book Critics' Circle Award for nonfiction. In her second memoir, China Men (1980), Kingston tells the story of Chinese immigration through the experiences of the men in her family. Using the narrative techniques of Woman Warrior, she relates their stories of virtual slave labour, loneliness, and discrimination. China Men won the American Book Award for nonfiction. In Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1989), the main character—Whittman Ah Sing, named after Walt Whitman (Whitman, Walt)—narrates a peculiarly 20th-century American odyssey; the book combines Eastern and Western literary traditions while emphasizing the Americanness of its characters. In To Be the Poet (2002), written mainly in verse, Kingston presented a rumination on elements of her own past and the acts of reading and creating poetry. The Fifth Book of Peace (2003) combines elements of fiction and memoir in the manner of a Chinese talk-story, a tradition in which elements of both the real and imagined worlds become interpolated.

      Kingston also published poems, short stories, and articles. Her collection of 12 prose sketches, Hawai'i One Summer (1987), was published in a limited edition with original woodblock prints and calligraphy. Beginning in 1993 Kingston ran a series of writing and meditation workshops for veterans of various conflicts and their families. From these workshops came the material for Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace (2006), a collection edited by Kingston containing prose and verse on the experiences of war, domestic violence, drug abuse, and other traumatic experiences.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Kingston,Maxine Hong — Kingston, Maxine Hong. Born 1940. American writer noted for incorporating her Chinese American background into her writings. Her best known works include The Woman Warrior (1976) and China Men (1980). * * * …   Universalium

  • Kingston, Maxine Hong — orig. Maxine Hong (n. 27 oct. 1940, Stockton, Cal., EE.UU.). Escritora estadounidense. Nacida en el seno de una familia de inmigrantes, Kingston examinó los mitos, realidades e identidades culturales de familias estadounidenses y chinas, y el… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Maxine Hong Kingston — Born Maxine Ting Ting Hong October 27, 1940 (1940 10 27) (age 71) Stockton, California …   Wikipedia

  • Maxine Hong Kingston — in New York City im September 2006. Maxine Hong Kingston (chinesisch: 湯婷婷, Tāng Tíng Tíng; * 27. Oktober 1940 in Stockton, Kalifornien) ist eine chinesisch US amerikanische Schriftstellerin und emeritierte Professorin (Literaturwissenschaftlerin) …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Maxine Hong Kingston — (en chino: 汤婷婷, nacida el 27 de octubre de 1940) es una novelista estadounidense de origen chino, autora y profesora emérita de la universidad de California en Berkeley, donde se graduó con una BA en inglés en 1962. Kingston ha escrito tres… …   Wikipedia Español

  • hong — /hong/, n. 1. (in China) a group of rooms or buildings forming a warehouse, factory, etc. 2. one of the factories under foreign ownership formerly maintained at Canton. [1720 30; < dial. Chin (Guangdong) hòhng, equiv. to Chin háng row of shops] * …   Universalium

  • Kingston — es la capital de Jamaica. Está situada en el sureste de la isla y tiene una población aproximada de 600.000 habitantes. Tiene un puerto natural protegido por los Palisadoes, nombre que recibe un largo banco de arena que une Port Royal y el… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Kingston — /kingz teuhn, king steuhn/, n. 1. Maxine Hong /hong/, born 1940, U.S. novelist. 2. a seaport in and the capital of Jamaica. 600,000. 3. a port in SE Ontario, in SE Canada, on Lake Ontario. 56,032. 4. a city in SE New York, on the Hudson River. 24 …   Universalium

  • Maxine — /mak seen , mak seen/, n. a female given name. * * * (as used in expressions) Kingston Maxine Hong Maxine Hong Kumin Maxine Maxine Winokur * * * …   Universalium

  • Hong — (as used in expressions) Ge Hong Hong Kong Hong Kyong nae, rebelión de Hong Xiuquan Hong tse Kingston, Maxine Hong Maxine Hong Song Hong …   Enciclopedia Universal

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