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Pepperdine University Libraries Presents Author Maxine Hong Kingston

Acclaimed writer Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior, and China Men, will discuss her memoir, I Love a Broad Margin to My Life, Monday, Apr. 16, at 4 p.m. in the Kresge Reading Room of Payson Library, Malibu. Joining her will be her husband, actor Earll Kingston, who will read selections from the book.

In her meditation on aging and life, Kingston embraces Thoreau's notion of a "broad margin," hoping to expand her vista as she examines her journey as a writer, teacher, and mother. She revisits her most beloved characters: she learns the final fate of her Woman Warrior and takes her Tripmaster Monkey on a journey through China–a trip that becomes an exploration of China past and present.

Dean of libraries Mark Roosa says, "Maxine Hong Kingston crowns the 'Year of Diversity' 2011-2012 lecture series in Payson Library. Her prose and poetry have been landmarks in advancing understanding of the Chinese-American experience."

Kingston won the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Woman Warrior and the National Book Award for China Men. The New York Times Book Review called Tripmaster Monkey "A dazzling leap of imaginative sympathy and narrative magic," and John Leonard in Harper's Magazine wrote of The Fifth Book of Peace, "Kingston is a lotus, a flowering of divine intellect..." For many years she has been a senior lecturer for creative writing at UC Berkeley.

Kingston's presentation is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the Pepperdine Libraries Web site.