About the author In 1940, a person by the name of Maxine Hong Kingston was born. She was the daughter of Chinese immigrants who operated a gambling house in Stockton, California. The first of six children born in America, and like many other Chinese immigrant children, her childhood consisted of long, hard labor working in the family laundry business alongside her siblings (www.llcc.cc.il.us ). She grew up listening to the stories of other immigrants and later used the information in her own writing. Kingston was a gifted student and attended public schools. Because of her talent, she received eleven scholarships, allowing her to enroll at the University of California, Berkeley. She began her studies as an engineering major but changed to English literature. In 1962, she graduated with a bachelor's degree and in November of that same year she married a man she had met in school, Earll Kingston, an actor (voices.cla.umn.edu). Kingston earned a teaching certificate in California and taught high school there for a year. In 1967 the Kingston's moved to Hawaii where she taught over the next ten years.In 1976 while teaching at a private high school in Hawaii, she published her first book The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts; it became a big success. This book combined autobiography and fiction to tell the story of a girl born of Chinese immigrant parents growing up in America during the 1950s (www.uncp.edu). The Woman Warrior is also filled with stories about earlier generations of Chinese women, their tragic lives in the extremely male-dominated society of China, and her attempts to break away from their traditional image. The Woman Warrior became a bestseller and received the National Book Critic's Circle Award. It is often taught in high schools and colleges across the country. Kingston's second book, China Men, was seen as a companion to her first book. She again explores the Chinese-American experience, only this time through the eyes of the men in her family (voices.cla.umn.edu). While still well received by the critics, this book received more controversial reviews. Again, Kingston was awarded the National Book Critic's Circle Award. In 1987, Kingston published Hawaii One Summer, a collection of poetry and, after the success of her previous books, was financially able to give up teaching as a career and focus on her writing (www.llcc.cc.il.us). She did, however, continue to teach intermittently as a visiting professor. A third book, Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book, was published in 1989 - her first novel. This book was such a departure for Kingston that it confused many of her readers; the critics still praised it. Set in San Francisco during the 1960s, Tripmaster Monkey is the story of a young Chinese-American man who, like many of her characters, fights against racism in his journey toward self-definition.Kingston's realistic characters and rich imagery help to illuminate the relationship between men and women in a culture...
