Maxine Hong Kingston has added at least two literary masterpieces to the American canon, and in different genres. This is more than most writers can claim. Even Mark Twain, for better or worse the quintessential benchmark of American prose, arguably only managed to create a masterpiece in one genre (depending on your opinion on Innocents Abroad).
Kingston's memoirs, published as Woman Warrior, and a brave exploration of identity both as woman and Asian-American. Her novel Tripmaster Monkey is an even more impressive work. It adapts the central character from Wu Cheng'en's folk novel Journey To the West and places him in the more contemporary context of late-1960s San Francisco and that whole Haight-Ashbury scene. It is a fantastic read, bursting with energy.
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