The Woman Warrior

The Woman Warrior

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts is a memoir by Maxine Hong Kingston, published by Vintage Books in 1975. Although there are many scholarly debates surrounding the official genre classification of the book, it can best be described as a work of creative non-fiction.

Throughout the five chapters of The Woman Warrior, Kingston blends autobiography with old Chinese folktales. What results is a complex portrayal of the 20th Century experiences of Chinese-Americans living in the U.S in the shadow of the Chinese Revolution.

The Woman Warrior has been reported by the Modern Language Association as the most commonly taught text in modern university education. It has been used in disciplines as far reaching as American literature, anthropology, Asian studies, composition, education, psychology, sociology, and women's studies. In addition, it has also won the National Book Critics Circle Award and has been named one of Time Magazine's top nonfiction books of the 1970s.