Editing Maxine Hong Kingston

{{Short description|Chinese American author and teacher (born 1940)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Maxine Hong Kingston
| image = Maxine Hong Kingston by David Shankbone.jpg
| caption = Maxine Hong Kingston in 2006
| birth_name = Maxine Ting Ting Hong<ref name=eNotes>{{cite web |title=Maxine Hong Kingston: Chronology |url=http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-literary-criticism/maxine-hong-kingston |website=[[eNotes]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090715113637/http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-literary-criticism/maxine-hong-kingston |archive-date=2009-07-15 |access-date=2014-08-25 |quote=1965–1967: Kingston teaches English and mathematics at Sunset High School in Hayward, California. She is active in the protest movement against the Vietnam War.}}</ref>
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1940|10|27}}
| birth_place = [[Stockton, California]], U.S.
| death_date =
| death_place =
| occupation = Novelist
| nationality = American
| education = [[University of California, Berkeley]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])
| period =
| genre =
| subject =
| movement =
| notableworks = ''[[The Woman Warrior]]'', ''[[The Fifth Book of Peace]]'', ''[[Tripmaster Monkey]]'', ''[[China Men]]''
| spouse = {{marriage|Earll Kingston|1962}}
| partner =
| children = 1
| relatives =
| awards = [[National Book Critics Circle Award]]<br />[[National Book Award]]<br />[[National Humanities Medal]]<br />[[National Medal of Arts]]
| signature =
| website =
}}
{{Infobox Chinese
|t=湯亭亭
|s=汤亭亭
|p=Tāng Tíngtíng
|mi={{IPAc-cmn|t|ang|1|-|t|ing|2|t|ing|2}}
|w=T'ang T'ingt'ing
|j=Tong Ting-ting
|i={{IPA-yue|tʰɔ́ːŋ.tʰȉŋtʰȉŋ|}}
}}

'''Maxine Hong Kingston''' ({{zh|t=湯婷婷}};<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://english.fju.edu.tw/lctd/List/AuthorIntro.asp?A_ID=94|title=Maxine Hong Kingston 湯婷婷|website=英文文學與文化教學資料庫|language=zh}}</ref> born '''Maxine Ting Ting Hong''';<ref name=huntley>{{cite book|last=Huntley |first=E. D. |year=2001 |title=Maxine Hong Kingston: A Critical Companion |page=1 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=9780313308772}}</ref> October 27, 1940) is an American novelist. She is a professor emerita at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], where she graduated with a [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] in English in 1962.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Kingston, Maxine Hong|last=Svetich|first=Kella|encyclopedia=The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|isbn=9780195156539 |editor1-first=Jay |editor1-last=Parini |editor2-first=Phillip W. |editor2-last=Leininger}}</ref> 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]]''.<ref name=nba1981>{{cite web|url=https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1981/?cat=general-nonfiction-hc |title=National Book Awards – 1981 |publisher=[[National Book Foundation]] |access-date=December 23, 2023}}</ref><ref group=lower-alpha>This was the [[List of winners of the National Book Award#General Nonfiction|award for hardcover "General Nonfiction"]].<br />From 1980 to 1983 in [[National Book Awards#History|National Book Awards history]] there were several nonfiction subcategories including General Nonfiction, with dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories.</ref>

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.<ref name=dartmouth>{{cite web|url=https://www.dartmouth.edu/~hist32/History/S08%20-%20Maxine%20Hong%20Kingston%20-%20Frank%20Chin%20Debate.htm |last=Huang |first=Judy |date=2001 |title=Asian-American Literary 'Authenticity': Frank Chin's 1991 Criticism of Maxine Hong Kingston in 1975 |publisher=Dartmouth College |access-date=December 23, 2023}}</ref> She has also garnered criticism from female Asian scholars for her "'over-exaggeration' of Asian American female oppression".<ref name=fong/><ref>{{cite book|last=Li |first=David Leiwei |year=1998 |title=Imagining the Nation: Asian American Literature and Cultural Consent |page=51 |publisher=Stanford University Press |doi=10.1515/9781503617636-004 |s2cid=246245756 |via=De Gruyter}}</ref>

==Life and career==
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)<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XOGdnCPJSOMC&dq=%22Chew+Ying+Lan%22&pg=PA279|title = Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women|isbn = 9780765607980|last1 = Lee|first1 = Lily Xiao Hong|last2 = Stefanowska|first2 = A. D.|last3 = Wiles|first3 = Sue|year = 1998| publisher=M.E. Sharpe }}</ref> and her mother, Ying Lan Chew.<ref name=":0">{{Cite magazine |last=Hsu |first=Hua |date=2020-06-01 |title=Maxine Hong Kingston's Genre-Defying Life and Work |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/08/maxine-hong-kingstons-genre-defying-life-and-work |access-date=2024-10-27 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref> She was the third of eight children and the oldest of the six born in the United States.

In [[China]], Tom Hong worked as a professional scholar and teacher in his home village of [[Xinhui|Sun Woi]], near [[Guangzhou|Canton]]. In 1925, Hong left China for the United States in search of better prospects. However, the [[Chinese Exclusion Act]] of 1882—a xenophobic response to the influx of Chinese workers in the nineteenth century—was still in effect, preventing Hong from legally entering the United States. He attempted to enter from Cuba twice before finally succeeding in 1927.<ref name=":0" />

Furthermore, early-twentieth-century U.S. employment laws were rife with racism, leaving little interest in hiring a well-educated Chinese immigrant. Hong had been a scholar in his home village of Sun Woi, near [[Canton, China|Canton]].<ref name=":0" /> However, in America, Hong was limited to working menial jobs - washing windows and doing laundry.<ref name=":0" /> He saved his earnings and became the manager of an illegal gambling house, which led him to get arrested numerous times. Hong "was canny about his arrests, never giving his real name and—because he apparently sensed that quite a few people thought that all Chinese looked alike—inventing a different name for each arrest. Consequently, he never acquired a police record in his own name."<ref>Huntley, p. 4.</ref> Hong was able to bring his wife over in 1939.<ref name=":0" /> During the fifteen years they were separated, Kingston's mother, Chew, had studied Western medicine and become a doctor.<ref name=":0" /> Yet in Stockton, she was just another immigrant. 

Shortly thereafter, Kingston was born; she was named "Maxine" after a blonde patron at the gambling house who was always remarkably lucky.<ref name="huntley" /> Kingston, a quiet child, didn’t learn English until age five. She recalls an I.Q. test once recording her score as zero.<ref name=":0" /> Asked to paint a picture for class, she presented a black sheet, representing stage curtains before a show. Her earliest memories are of World War II—cousins in uniform. Fascinated by war and soldiers, she grew up hearing her mother recount China's history as a continuous cycle of conquest and conflict: “We were always losers. We were always on the run.”<ref name=":0" /> 

[[File:Portrait of Maxine Hong Kingston in c. 1976.jpg|thumb|Kingston {{circa|1976}}]]
At a young age, Kingston was drawn to writing and won a five-dollar prize from ''Girl Scout Magazine'' for an essay she wrote titled "I Am an American". She majored in [[engineering]] at [[University of California, Berkeley]], before switching to [[English studies|English]]. She met her husband, actor Earll Kingston, while they were both students at [[University of California, Berkeley|Berkeley]], and they married in 1962. Kingston then began her career as a high school teacher.<ref name=":0" />

Their son, Joseph Lawrence Chung Mei, was born in 1963. From 1965 to 1967, Maxine taught English and mathematics at [[Sunset High School (Hayward, California)|Sunset High School]] in [[Hayward, California]].<ref name="eNotes" /> After relocating to [[Hawaii]], her boredom in a lonely hotel 80 miles north of Oahu caused Maxine to begin writing extensively, finally completing and publishing her first book, ''The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts'', in 1976. She began teaching English at the [[University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa]] that same year. By 1981 she had moved on to teach at Berkeley.<ref>{{cite web |title=Maxine Hong Kingston |url=http://www2.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/canam/kingston.htm |publisher=[[University of North Carolina at Pembroke]] |access-date=30 April 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150408001505/http://www2.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/canam/kingston.htm |archive-date=8 April 2015 }}</ref>

Her writing often reflects on her cultural heritage and blends fiction with non-fiction. Among her works are ''[[The Woman Warrior]]'' (1976), awarded the [[National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction]], and ''[[China Men]]'' (1980), awarded the [[National Book Award for Nonfiction]].<ref name=nba1981 /> She has written one novel, ''[[Tripmaster Monkey]],'' a story depicting a protagonist based on the mythical Chinese character [[Sun Wu Kong]]. Subsequent books include ''[[To Be the Poet]]'' and ''[[The Fifth Book of Peace]].''

A public television documentary produced by Joan Saffa, Stephen Talbot and Gayle K. Yamada, ''Maxine Hong Kingston: Talking Story,'' was released in 1990. Narrated by actor B.D. Wong and featuring notable Asian-American authors such as [[Amy Tan]] and [[David Henry Hwang]], it explored Kingston's life, paying particular attention to her commentary on cultural heritage and both sexual and racial oppression. The production was awarded the CINE Golden Eagle in 1990.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cine.org/golden-eagle-archive.php|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090211061306/http://www.cine.org/golden-eagle-archive.php |url-status=dead |title=CINE Golden Eagle Award Archives|archive-date=February 11, 2009}}</ref> Kingston also participated in the production of [[Bill Moyers]]' PBS historical documentary, ''Becoming American: The Chinese Experience''.

Kingston was awarded the 1997 [[National Humanities Medal]] by [[President of the United States]] [[Bill Clinton]]. She was a member of the committee to choose the design for the [[California]] commemorative quarter.

In 2003, Kingston was arrested in Washington, D.C. while [[Protests against the Iraq War|protesting against the impending Iraq War]]. The protest, which took place on [[International Women's Day]] (March 8), was coordinated by the women-initiated organization [[Code Pink]]. Kingston refused to leave the street after being instructed to do so by local police forces. She shared a jail cell with authors [[Alice Walker]] and [[Terry Tempest Williams]], who were also participants in the demonstration. Kingston's anti-war stance has significantly trickled into her work; she has stated that writing ''The Fifth Book of Peace'' was initiated and inspired by growing up during [[World War II]].

Kingston was honored as a 175th Speaker Series writer at [[Emma Willard School]] in September 2005.  In April, 2007, Kingston was awarded the Northern California Book Award Special Award in Publishing for ''Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace'' (2006), an anthology which she edited.

In July, 2014, Kingston was awarded the 2013 [[National Medal of Arts]] by [[President of the United States]] [[Barack Obama]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.arts.gov/honors/medals/maxine-hong-kingston|title=National Medal of Arts – Maxine Hong Kingston|website=National Endowment for the Arts|access-date=February 1, 2017}}</ref> In Spring 2023, Kingston was awarded the [[Emerson-Thoreau Medal]] for distinguished achievement in the field of literature by the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]]<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.amacad.org/news/maxine-hong-kingston-literature-medal | title=Maxine Hong Kingston Awarded Literature Medal | date=2 April 2023 }}</ref>

She currently resides in Oakland, California where she is retired and maintains her garden.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Guthrie |first=Julian |date=January 23, 2011 |title=Maxine Hong Kingston embarks on new life chapter |url=https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/maxine-hong-kingston-embarks-on-new-life-chapter-2478664.php |access-date=January 14, 2024 |website=SFGate.com}}</ref>

==Influences==

In an interview published in ''American Literary History'', Kingston disclosed her admiration for [[Walt Whitman]], [[Virginia Woolf]], and [[William Carlos Williams]], who were inspirational influences for her work, shaping her analysis of [[gender studies]]. Kingston said of Walt Whitman's work,

<blockquote>I like the rhythm of his language and the freedom and the wildness of it. It's so American. And also his vision of a new kind of human being that was going to be formed in this country—although he never specifically said Chinese—ethnic Chinese also—I'd like to think he meant all kinds of people. And also I love that throughout ''Leaves of Grass'' he always says 'men and women,' 'male and female.' He's so different from other writers of his time, and even of this time. Even a hundred years ago he included women and he always used [those phrases], 'men and women,' 'male and female.'<ref name="jstor.org">{{Cite journal|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/489888|title=Interview with Maxine Hong Kingston|author1=Fishkin, Shelley Fisher|author2=Kingston, Maxine Hong|year=1991|journal=American Literary History|volume=3|issue=4|pages=782–791|doi=10.1093/alh/3.4.782|jstor=489888}}</ref></blockquote>

Kingston named the main character of ''[[Tripmaster Monkey]]'' (1989) Wittman Ah Sing, after Walt Whitman.

Of Woolf, Kingston stated:

<blockquote>I found that whenever I come to a low point in my life or in my work, when I read Virginia Woolf's ''Orlando'', that always seems to get my life force moving again. I just love the way she can make one character live for four hundred years, and that Orlando can be a man. Orlando can be a woman. Virginia broke through constraints of time, of gender, of culture.<ref name="jstor.org" /></blockquote>

Similarly, Kingston's praise of William Carlos Williams expresses her appreciation of his seemingly genderless work:

<blockquote>I love ''In the American Grain'' because it does the same thing. Abraham Lincoln is a 'mother' of our country. He talks about this wonderful woman walking through the battlefields with her beard and shawl. I find that so freeing, that we don't have to be constrained to being just one ethnic group or one gender – both [Woolf and Williams] make me feel that I can now write as a man, I can write as a black person, as a white person; I don't have to be restricted by time and physicality.<ref name="jstor.org" /></blockquote>

==Criticism==
Though Kingston's work is acclaimed by some, it has also received negative criticism, especially from some members of the [[Chinese American]] community. Playwright and novelist [[Frank Chin]] has severely criticized Kingston's ''[[The Woman Warrior]]'', stating that Kingston deliberately tarnished the authenticity of Chinese tradition by altering traditional stories and myths to appeal to white sensitivities.<ref name=dartmouth/> Chin has accused Kingston of "liberally adapting [traditional stories] to collude with white racist [[stereotype]]s and to invent a 'fake' Chinese-American culture that is more palatable to the mainstream."<ref>[http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitCrit/jama62549/FJ3533950004 "Frank Chin (1940–)." ''Contemporary Literary Criticism''. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 135. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 150–202. Literature Criticism Online. Gale. St. John's University Library. 10 April 2009]</ref>

Kingston commented on her critics' opinions in a 1990 interview in which she stated that men believe that minority women writers have "achieved success by collaborating with the white racist establishment," by "pander[ing] to the white taste for feminist writing... It's a one-sided argument because the women don't answer. We let them say those things because we don't want to be divisive."<ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/467101|title=A MELUS Interview: Maxine Hong Kingston|author1=Chin, Marilyn|author2=Kingston, Maxine Hong|year=1989|journal=MELUS|volume=16|issue=4|pages=57–74|doi=10.2307/467101|jstor=467101}}</ref>

However, several female Asian scholars have also criticized Kingston's work. [[Shirley Geok-lin Lim]], a professor of English at the [[University of California, Santa Barbara]], stated that Kingston's "representations of patriarchal, abusive Chinese history were playing to a desire to look at Asians as an inferior spectacle".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/dec/13/featuresreviews.guardianreview6|title=Profile: Maxine Hong Kingston|date=December 13, 2003|website=the Guardian}}</ref> Writer Katheryn M. Fong took exception to Kingston's "distortion of the histories of China and Chinese America" and denounced Kingston for her "over-exaggerated" depiction of Chinese and Chinese American cultural misogyny.<ref name=fong>Fong, Katheryn (1977). "An Open Letter/Review". ''Bulletin for Concerned Asian Scholars''.</ref> "The problem is that non-Chinese are reading [Kingston's] fiction as true accounts of Chinese and Chinese American history," wrote Fong, who noted that her own father "was very loving" towards her.<ref name=fong/><ref>Douglas, Christopher (2001). ''Reciting America: Culture and Cliché in Contemporary U.S. Fiction, Part 68''. p. 119.</ref>

==Recognition==

=== Literary prize ===
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!Year
!Title
!Award
!Category
!Result
!Ref.
|-
!1976
| rowspan="2" |''[[The Woman Warrior]]''
|[[National Book Critics Circle Award]]
|[[National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction|General Nonfiction]]|| {{won}} 
|
|-
!1978
|[[Anisfield-Wolf Book Award]]
|Nonfiction|| {{won}} 
|<ref>{{Cite web |title=Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards {{!}} The 80th Annual |url=http://www.anisfield-wolf.org/books/the-woman-warrior/?sortby=year |access-date=2016-03-23 |website=Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards {{!}} The 80th Annual}}</ref>
|-
! rowspan="2" |1980
| rowspan="3" |''[[China Men]]''
|[[National Book Award]]
|[[National Book Award for Nonfiction|General Nonfiction (Hardcover)]]|| {{won}} 
|<ref name="nba1981" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Maxine Hong Kingston, 2008 Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, National Book Foundation, Presenter of National Book Awards |url=http://www.nationalbook.org/amerletters_2008_kingston.html#.VvK5zFL7PdU |access-date=2016-03-23 |website=www.nationalbook.org}}</ref>
|-
|[[National Book Critics Circle Award]]
|[[National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction|General Nonfiction]]|| {{sho|Finalist}} 
|<ref>{{Cite web |title=1980 |url=https://www.bookcritics.org/past-awards/1980/#:~:text=1980%20Winners%20&%20Finalists&text=Helen%20Vendler,%20Part%20of%20Nature,Poets%20(Harvard%20University%20Press). |access-date=2025-04-23 |website=National Book Critics Circle |language=en-US}}</ref>
|-
!1981
|[[Pulitzer Prize]]
|General Non-Fiction|| {{sho|Finalist}} 
|
|-
!1989
|''[[Tripmaster Monkey]]''
|PEN West Award for Fiction
|Fiction/Novel|| {{won}} 
|
|}

=== Awards ===
* [[National Endowment for the Arts]] Writers Award, 1980 
* [[National Endowment for the Arts]] Writers Award, 1982
* [[National Humanities Medal]], 1997<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.neh.gov/about/awards/national-humanities-medals/maxine-hong-kingston |title=Maxine Hong Kingston {{!}} National Endowment for the Humanities|website=www.neh.gov|access-date=2016-03-23}}</ref>
* Lifetime Achievement Award from the [[Asian American Literary Awards]], 2006
* [[National Book Award|Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters]] from the [[National Book Foundation]], 2008<ref name="medal">{{Cite web |title=National Book Foundation to Present Lifetime Achievement Award to Barbara Kingsolver |url=https://www.nationalbook.org/programs/dcal/ |access-date=2025-04-23 |website=National Book Foundation |language=en-US}}</ref><!-- NOT the Literarian Award -->
* Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature Award, 2011
* [[National Medal of Arts]], 2013<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.arts.gov/honors/medals/maxine-hong-kingston |title=National Medal of Arts {{!}} NEA |website=www.arts.gov |access-date=2016-03-23}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://news.berkeley.edu/2014/07/28/maxine-hong-kingston-wins-national-medal-of-arts/ |title=Maxine Hong Kingston wins National Medal of Arts |website=Berkeley News |date=30 November 2001 |access-date=2016-03-23}}</ref>[[Emerson-Thoreau Medal]]

==Selected works==
* ''[[No Name Woman]]'' (essay), 1975
* ''[[The Woman Warrior|The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts]]'', 1976
* ''[[China Men]]'', Knopf, 1980
* ''Hawai'i One Summer'', 1987
* ''Through the Black Curtain'', 1987
* ''[[Tripmaster Monkey|Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book]]'', 1989
* ''To Be the Poet'', 2002
* ''The Fifth Book of Peace'', 2003
* ''Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace'', 2006
* ''[[I Love a Broad Margin to My Life]]'', 2011

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Literature==
* Viet Thanh Nguyen: ''The woman warrior, China men, Tripmaster monkey, Hawai'i one summer, other writings'', New York: The Library of America, 2022, {{ISBN|978-1-59853-724-6}}
==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
* [https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-55-2r3nv99g58 Maxine Hong Kingston: Talking Story 1990]  (video)
* [http://www.plu.edu/scene/issue/2003/spring/maxine.html Becoming a poet and a peacemaker: Maxine Hong Kingston comes to PLU]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070525142111/http://www.uctv.tv/library-popup.asp?showID=8588 Reading at UC Berkeley, February 5, 2004] (video)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080625030751/http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/Bios/entries/kingston_maxine_hong.html Voices from the Gaps biography]
* [http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2519 Literary Encyclopedia] (in-progress)
* [http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt6w10293c/ Guide to the Maxine Hong Kingston Papers] at [[The Bancroft Library]]
* [http://www.sonshi.com/kingston.html October 2007 interview with Maxine Hong Kingston] discussing war and peace
* [http://www.nationalbook.org/amerletters_2008_kingston.html 2008 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letter from the National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards]

{{American Book Awards (2020–2039)}}
{{National Medal of Arts recipients 2010s}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kingston, Maxine Hong}}
[[Category:1940 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century American women writers]]
[[Category:20th-century short story writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American novelists]]
[[Category:21st-century American short story writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American women writers]]
[[Category:American Book Award winners]]
[[Category:American feminist writers]]
[[Category:American memoirists]]
[[Category:American novelists of Chinese descent]]
[[Category:American short story writers of Chinese descent]]
[[Category:American women memoirists]]
[[Category:American women novelists]]
[[Category:American women short story writers]]
[[Category:American women writers of Chinese descent]]
[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]
[[Category:National Book Award winners]]
[[Category:National Humanities Medal recipients]]
[[Category:Postmodern feminists]]
[[Category:Postmodern writers]]
[[Category:Sunset High School (Hayward, California) alumni]]
[[Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni]]
[[Category:University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty]]
[[Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients]]
[[Category:Writers from Hawaii]]
[[Category:Writers from Oakland, California]]
[[Category:Writers from Stockton, California]]