Document Type

Book

Publication Date

2004

Abstract

“The history of the intermingling of human cultures is a history of trade—in objects like the narwhal’s tusk, in ideas, and in great narratives.”

—Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams

The Woman Warrior (1976), Maxine Hong Kingston’s first book, made her famous. Her arrival coincided with, and helped to fuel, an awareness of literature by women and ethnic minorities, and a change in the literature studied in high-school and college classrooms. Today Kingston is one of the most frequently taught of living American authors. Her works are studied in courses in English, women’s studies, Asian studies, ethnic studies, postmodern literature, postcolonial literature, “magic realism,” history, and autobiography. Discussion of Kingston has in fact changed our understanding of several of these categories.

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