The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (Vintage International)
A memoir of Chinese American girlhood that layers family speech, legend, and lived experience.
Work Information
Myth and family talk shape one woman’s coming of age.
A memoir of Chinese American girlhood that layers family speech, legend, and lived experience. Personal experience and historical fact open outward into a wider social frame.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Published
- 1989-04-23
- Pages
- 224 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13 x 1.63 x 20.27 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780679721888
- ISBN-10
- 0679721886
- Price
- 3102 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Politics & Social Sciences/Social Sciences/Specific Demographics/Minority Studies
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An exhilarating blend of autobiography and mythology, of world and self, of hot rage and cool analysis. First published in 1976, it has become a classic in its innovative portrayal of multiple and intersecting identities—immigrant, female, Chinese, American. • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER “A classic, for a reason.” —Celeste Ng, bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere and Our Missing Hearts , via Twitter As a girl, Kingston lives in two confounding worlds: the California to which her parents have immigrated and the China of her mother’s “talk stories.” The fierce and wily women warriors of her mother’s tales clash jarringly with the harsh reality of female oppression out of which they come. Kingston’s sense of self emerges in the mystifying gaps in these stories, which she learns to fill with stories of her own. A warrior of words, she forges fractured myths and memories into an incandescent whole, achieving a new understanding of her family’s past and her own present.
Maxine Hong Kingston is the daughter of Chinese immigrants who operated a gambling house in the 1940s, when Maxine was born, and then a laundry where Kingston and her brothers and sisters toiled long hours. Kingston graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1962 from the University of California at Berkeley, and, in the same year, married actor Earll Kingston, whom she had met in an English course. The couple has one son, Joseph, who was born in 1963. They were active in antiwar activities in Berkeley, but in 1967 the Kingstons headed for Japan to escape the increasing violence and drugs of the antiwar movement. They settled instead in Hawai‘i, where Kingston took various teaching posts. They returned to California seventeen years later, and Kingston resumed teaching writing at the University of California, Berkeley. While in Hawai‘i, Kingston wrote her first two books. The Woman Warrior , her first book, was published in 1976 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award, making her a literary celebrity at age thirty-six. Her second book, China Men , earned the National Book Award. Still today, both books are widely taught in literature and other classes. Kingston has earned additional awards, including the PEN West Award for Fiction for Tripmaster Monkey , the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and the National Humanities Medal, which was conferred by President Clinton, as well as the title “Living Treasure of Hawai‘i” bestowed by a Honolulu Buddhist church. Her most recent books include a collection of essays, Hawai ‘ i One Summer , and latest novel, The Fifth Book of Peace . Kingston is currently Senior Lecturer Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley.
Reviews
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Bellissimo libro! Super consigliato! Inglese non semplicissimo per dei principianti ma facilmente intuibile! Un libro per le donne ma che dovrebbe essere letto da tutti !
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In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston dives deep into the cultural intersection of Chinese and Western culture. Told through old traditional tales and her own experiences, the book is insightful, passionate and ageless.
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While I have read others descriptions of The Woman Warrior using words like “complex” and “difficult” I find reading it rather to be like riding the wind. Enchanted by breathtaking dips, turns and changes in person and perspectives I loved holding on for the ride. How can a reader not be blown away by the rich inner life and imagination of the author, all the while gaining insight into one’s own journey? In 1976 Maxine came to my door with a preview copy of her book. I barely knew her for as a quiet, thoughtful presence at occasional gathering of friends and colleagues. At receiving the gift I felt no little chagrin. We lived in the compound of a boarding college prep school among students and staff. It was a small-town atmosphere in which one’s opinion spread quickly. (A persnickety judge of grammar and flow weaknesses, what if I didn’t like it?) A very few pages in, however, I felt thunderstruck by the depth, power, insight and imagination all impeccably conveyed. This month, over 45 years after my first reading I will lead The Woman Warrior discussion in my book club in Costa Rica.
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as expected
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Kingston writes with a very nice style, and I love the way she compares her story with Chinese legends. The view of an immigrated girl in the United States is really amazing, and interesting.
Related Literary Awards
- Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Edition 43 (1978) ・Winner
- National Book Award Edition 66 (2008) ・Achievement Award
- National Book Critics Circle Awards Edition 1 (1976) ・Winner