About Maxine Hong Kingston
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 in 1962 with a B.A. degree in English. 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". Kingston was born Maxine Ting Ting Hong on October 27, 1940, in Stockton, California, to first-generation Chinese immigrants parents: her father, Tom Hong (d. 1991) and her mother, Ying Lan Chew. Consequently, he never acquired a police record in his own name." Hong was able to bring his wife over in 1939.
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