NATIONAL BESTSELLER - 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. - NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER
"A classic, for a reason." --Celeste Ng, bestselling author of Little
Fires Everywhere and Our Missing Hearts, via Twitter
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.