Maxine Hong Kingston is the author of two seminal Chinese American texts: The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976) and China Men (1980). These works combine autobiography, folktales, history and fiction to relate the respective stories of the women and men in her family. The crucial narrative technique used by Kingston is talkstory, which derives from traditional Chinese storytelling as well as from Asian American immigrant lore, since the term itself originates from Hawaiian pidgin. Talk-story represents the way familial narratives are passed on from one generation to the other, typically through female relatives. Kingston associates talk-story and the legacy of her Chinese background with elements drawn from American classic authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Carlos Williams. She also re-elaborates Chinese legends; most famously, the story of Fa Mulan. As a Chinese American woman writer, Kingston thus ultimately constructs a hybrid form of memoir, combining disparate motifs and influences.

Keywords: Maxine Hong Kingston; Chinese American literature; Asian American literature; talk-story; orality; storytelling