By the author of the bestselling THE WOMAN WARRIOR, a magical book: a literature of peace built on the stories of war.Divided into four sections - 'Fire', 'Paper', 'Water' and 'Earth' - this book is neither fiction nor autobiography nor memoir, but a unique form of Chinese 'talk-story' in which real and imagined worlds intr

The Fifth Book of Peace

Kingston, Maxine Hong

Vintage

In her singular voice—humble, elegiac, practical—Maxine Hong Kingston sets out to reflect on aging as she turns sixty-five. Kingston’s swift, effortlessly flowing verse lines feel instantly natural in this fresh approach to the art of memoir, as she circles from present to past and back, from lunch with a writer friend to the funeral of a Vietnam veteran, from her long marriage (“can’t divorce until we get it right. / Love, that is. Get love right”) to her arrest at a peace march in Washington, where she and her "sisters" protested the Iraq war in the George W. Bush years. Kingston embraces Thoreau’s notion of a “broad margin,” hoping to expand her vista: “I’m standing on top of a hill; / I can see everywhichway— / the long way that I came, and the few / places I have yet to go. Treat / my whole life as if it were a day.” On her journeys as writer, peace activist, teacher, and mother, Kingston revisits her most beloved characters: she learns the final fate of her Woman Warrior, and she takes her Tripmaster Monkey, a hip Chinese American, on a journey through China, where he has never been—a trip that becomes a beautiful meditation on the country then and now, on a culture where rice farmers still work in the age-old way, even as a new era is dawning. “All over China,” she writes, “and places where Chinese are, populations / are on the move, going home. That home / where Mother and Father are buried. Doors / between heaven and earth open wide.” Such is the spirit of this wonderful book—a sense of doors opening wide onto an American life of great purpose and joy, and the tonic wisdom of a writer we have come to cherish.

I Love a Broad Margin to My Life

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

KNOPF

In her singular voice—both humble and brave, touching and humorous—Maxine Hong Kingston gives us a poignant and beautiful memoir-in-verse that captures the wisdom that comes with age. As she reflects on her sixty-five years, she circles from present to past and back, from lunch with a writer friend to the funeral of a Vietnam veteran, from her long marriage to her arrest at a peace march in Washington. On her journeys as writer, peace activist, teacher, and mother, she revisits her most beloved characters—Wittman Ah-Sing, the Tripmaster Monkey, and Fa Mook Lan, the Woman Warrior—and presents us with a beautiful meditation on China then and now. The result is a marvelous account of an American life of great purpose and joy, and the tonic wisdom of a writer we have come to cherish.

I Love a Broad Margin to My Life (Vintage International)

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Tripmaster Monkey

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

New York Knopf 1989

China Men

The author describes the Chinese experience in the U.S. through incidents from her childhood, the history of early Chinese immigrants, and Chinese myths and tales

History

Americas

Ballantine Books

A first-generation Chinese-American woman recounts the circumstances, conditions, and consequences of growing up in frantic America within a steadfastly tradition-bound Chinese family, and confronted with Chinese ghosts from the past and non-Chinese ghosts of the present

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

Community & Culture

Second book by author whose first work - WOMAN WARRIOR - won the National Book Critics Circle 1976 award for best work of non-fiction.

Teen & Young Adult

Driven by his dream to write and stage an epic stage production of interwoven Chinese novelsWittman Ah Sing, a Chinese-American hippie in the late '60s. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book

United States

A Chinese American woman tells of the Chinese myths, family stories and events of her California childhood that have shaped her identity.From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Woman Warrior

Random House Audio |

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kingston, Maxine Hong. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kingston, Maxine Hong

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kingston, Maxine Hong. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Fifth Book of Peace

I Love a Broad Margin to My Life

I Love a Broad Margin to My Life (Vintage International)

Tripmaster Monkey

China Men

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

China Men

Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book

The Woman Warrior

The Woman Warrior