In her singular voice--both humble and brave, touching and humorous--Maxine Hong Kingston gives us a poignant and beautiful memoir-in-verse that captures the wisdom that comes with age. As she reflects on her sixty-five years, she circles from present to past and back, from lunch with a writer friend to the funeral of a Vietnam veteran, from her long marriage to her arrest at a peace march in Washington. On her journeys as writer, peace activist, teacher, and mother, she revisits her most beloved characters--Wittman Ah-Sing, the Tripmaster Monkey, and Fa Mook Lan, the Woman Warrior--and presents us with a beautiful meditation on China then and now. The result is a marvelous account of an American life of great purpose and joy, and the tonic wisdom of a writer we have come to cherish.

Author: Maxine Hong Kingston
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: 02/14/2012
Series: Vintage International
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780307454591


Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 03/25/2012 pg. 28

About the Author

Maxine Hong Kingston is the author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey, and The Fifth Book of Peace, among other works. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle award, the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award. For many years a Senior Lecturer for Creative Writing at UC Berkeley, she lives in Oakland, California.