Maxine Hong Kingston easily is the most influential Asian American author of the twentieth century. Kingston's first book, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts (1976), was an instant commercial and critical triumph. Since its first appearance it has gone through multiple editions and printings, has been translated into more than three dozen languages, and has become--in the United States, at least--one of the most popular university texts of all time, widely read in courses in education, sociology, psychology, anthropology, women's studies, Asian studies, and American literature. While The Woman Warrior remains Kingston's best-known and most important work, an award-winning second book, China Men (1980); two limited-edition essay collections, Hawai'i One Summer: 1978 (1987) and Through the Black Curtain (1987); and a critically acclaimed first novel, Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1989), have added to her reputation as a writer of breadth, complexity, and stunning originality.

Kingston's reputation as a writer of...