Maxine Hong Kingston's "The Woman Warrior": A Casebook

Abstract

With the continued expansion of the literary canon, multicultural works of modern literary fiction and autobiography have assumed an increasing importance for students and scholars of American literature. This exciting new series assembles key documents and criticism concerning these works that have so recently become central components of the American literature curriculum. Each casebook will reprint documents relating to the work's historical context and reception, present the best in critical essays, and when possible, feature an interview of the author. The series will provide, for the first time, an accessible forum in r ich readers can come to a fuller understanding of these contemporary masterpieces and the unique aspects of American ethnic, racial, or cultural experience that they so ably portray. This case book presents a thought-provoking overview of critical debates surrounding The Woman Warrior, perhaps the best known Asian American literary work. The essays deal with such issues as the reception by various interpretive communities, canon formation, cultural authenticity, fictionality in autobiography, and feminist and poststructuralist subjectivity. The eight essays are supplemented an interview with the author and a bibliography. A Chinese woman's response to Maxine Hong Kingston's The woman warrior / Ya-Jie Zhang -- The most popular book in China / Frank Chin -- Autobiography as guided Chinatown tour? Maxine Hong Kingston's The woman warrior and the Chinese American autobiography controversy / Sau-Ling Cynthia Wong -- Filiality and woman's autobiographical storytelling / Sidonie Smith -- No lost paradise: social gender and symbolic gender in the writings of Maxine Hong Kingston / Leslie W. Rabine -- The woman warrior versus the Chinaman pacific: must a Chinese American critic choose between feminism and heroism? / King-Kok Cheung -- Chinese American women writers: the tradition behind Maxine Hong Kingston / Amy Ling -- Intelligibility and meaningfulness in multicultural literature in English (excerpts) / Reed Way Dasenbrock -- Susan Brownmiller talks with Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The woman warrior.