Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Nonfiction


“A book of fierce clarity and originality” (Newsweek), Maxine Hong Kingston’s autobiography tells of her early life in California and the cultural confusion she experienced as the daughter of Chinese immigrants.

In her award-winning book The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston created an entirely new form—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. 

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.


“A remarkable book. . . . As an account of growing up female and Chinese-American in California, in a laundry of course, it is an anti-nostalgic; it burns the fat right out of the mind. As a dream—of the ’female avenger’—it is dizzying, elemental, a poem turned into a sword.” —The New York Times
  • WINNER | 1978
    Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
  • WINNER | 1976
    National Book Critics Circle Awards

Maxine Hong Kingston is the author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, and The Fifth Book of Peace, among other works. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award. She worked for many years as a senior lecturer in creative writing at UC Berkeley. Kingston lives in Oakland, California.

View titles by Maxine Hong Kingston

About

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Nonfiction


“A book of fierce clarity and originality” (Newsweek), Maxine Hong Kingston’s autobiography tells of her early life in California and the cultural confusion she experienced as the daughter of Chinese immigrants.

In her award-winning book The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston created an entirely new form—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. 

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.


“A remarkable book. . . . As an account of growing up female and Chinese-American in California, in a laundry of course, it is an anti-nostalgic; it burns the fat right out of the mind. As a dream—of the ’female avenger’—it is dizzying, elemental, a poem turned into a sword.” —The New York Times

Awards

  • WINNER | 1978
    Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
  • WINNER | 1976
    National Book Critics Circle Awards

Author

Maxine Hong Kingston is the author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, and The Fifth Book of Peace, among other works. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award. She worked for many years as a senior lecturer in creative writing at UC Berkeley. Kingston lives in Oakland, California.

View titles by Maxine Hong Kingston

Three Penguin Random House Authors Win Pulitzer Prizes

On Monday, May 5, three Penguin Random House authors were honored with a Pulitzer Prize. Established in 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes are the most prestigious awards in American letters. To date, PRH has 143 Pulitzer Prize winners, including William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Josh Steinbeck, Ron Chernow, Anne Applebaum, Colson Whitehead, and many more. Take a look at our 2025 Pulitzer Prize

Read more

Books for LGBTQIA+ Pride Month

In June we celebrate Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual + (LGBTQIA+) Pride Month, which honors the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan. Pride Month is a time to both celebrate the accomplishments of those in the LGBTQ+ community and recognize the ongoing struggles faced by many across the world who wish to live

Read more

Vulture shares a list of Must-Read Books for Women’s History Month (Recommended by Women Writers)

Penguin Random House is proud to highlight some of the amazing women from this article whose work we’re fortunate enough to share with the world. See some of their selections below.     Lisa See, author of The Island of Sea Women The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston   Amber Tamblyn, author of Era of Ignition:

Read more