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.
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