The Woman Warrior

Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

By: Maxine Hong Kingston

Narrated by: Ming-Na

Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Acclaimed author Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior broke new ground when it was first published 35 years ago, weaving autobiography, history, folklore, and fantasy in to a candid and revelatory story about the daughter of Chinese immigrants in mid-20th century California.

Now in audio for the first time, The Woman Warrior is read by television and movie star Ming-Na (ER, Mulan) in a performance that captures the book’s amazing spectrum of hope, longing, fear, and strength.

Kingston, winner of the National Book Award and National Humanities Medal, beautifully mixes reality and fantasy in relating her experience growing up a stranger in America and an outsider to her family’s history in China. Thanks to the author’s unique storytelling style and voice, this book remains one of the most commonly taught college texts in America. Hear it performed here for the first time.

©1975, 1976 Maxine Hong Kingston (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Can be confusing

This book was recommended by a writer, but it certainly was not to my liking. The many stories were confusing by mixing reality with day dreams and visions.

liked the "talk-stories"

i liked the talk stories, but struggled following the story of the narrator at times. I had a lot of unanswered questions at the end but I think so did the narrator, if you realize how her upbringing was in the novel.

Poetic Fable and Fiction

Really well done mixture of poetic fable and fiction. Might I add that the best fiction is informed by nonfiction? You get a lot of that here too. Readers new to Chinese history will be inspired to research the fantastic classic tales this book introduces and weaves in with modern narrative.

Literature is Great

...but uh... Huh??? I know there's some deep, profound meaning here, but I spent a day and a half wondering what that might've been.

Wonderful Story Telling

This is a wonderful story told with great insight and humor. It re-affirms the common experiences of all humans.

Enchanting

Listening to this book I felt like I was under a spell. It so beautifully and seamlessly weaves through a story of her life and by the end you, along with the narrator, don’t know what’s real or not but somehow you know what’s true.

Transportive & entertaining

I loved this story and the narrator’s expressiveness. My only complaint is that I hadn’t read/heard it much sooner. I think I would’ve made a difference to me as a daughter of Asian immigrants albeit my parents are from the Philippines which is an entirely different culture and experience and I’m of a later generation. This book feels fresh and as relevant today as it was back when it was first published.

Very well written and read

There was a variety of stories told. But the way it all flowed together and grew. It was hard not to be immersed in the stories told. The characters all very rich. There was a strong feminist feel, not in a bad way. But in the means that this is in the perspective of different women who had their own paths to go through. I loved it!

Masterful Storytelling

Every once and a while you happen upon a book and you wonder how you made it through 50 plus years without having read it already. My life is richer for having read it. This book is as timely now as it was in 1962. Much gratitude to the author and to Ming-Na for her theatrical reading.

Hilariously Vicious; Touchingly Empathetic

This is a story about the collision of cultural across time. A generic 7th century culture collides with a generic 20th century culture.

Of course, time and place are interconnected. If the 20th century is the “American Century” then the 7th century (and maybe the 8th and 9th centuries as well) disserve(s) to be called the “Tang Century(s)”. So this is also about the collision of Chinese Village culture on the cusp of modernity and American culture near the maximum of its rate of ascendancy..

It seems to me like this book should be studied in literature classes as a quintessential example of the modern literacy style. It is a non-linearly collection of stories each of which plays with the distinction between fiction and non-fiction. It deliberately bends the distinction between autobiography and social commentary. It talks about ordinary people to make points about Great civilizations. It tells the most painful stories of desperation and betrayal as humor (although the humor is probably sharper if you are in fact Chinese). It toys with many of the other classical demarcations in literature (perhaps all of the classical demarcations) and yet manages to not feel (too much) like a teenager rebelling against tradition for the sake of rebellion. It is worth reading just to improve one's taste for high art.

It is dated. It’s usually different for Chinese born after Deng Xiaoping. But it’s a must read for understanding older Chinese women.

I have a ratings monetary policy problem. Too many of my ratings are 5 star, and too often, as in this case, I feel the need to give 6 stars. Perhaps I need to give more 4 star ratings so I save some room at the top.