of the top 10 nonfiction works of the decade. The
attention the book received allowed Kingston the
freedom to write full time. Her 1980 follow-up vol-
ume China Men received similar acclaim, winning
the National Book Award for General Nonfiction
in 1981. A short collection of essays, Hawai’i One
Summer, appeared in 1987.
With TRIPMASTER MONKEY (1989) Kingston
turned from the blend of autobiography and myth
that had characterized her early work to straight-
forward fiction. A rollicking, wildly experimental
novel, Tripmaster Monkey presents the escapades of
a young Berkeley graduate in the late 1960s named
Wittman Ah Sing, as he attempts to compose an
epic drama that will bridge Chinese culture and
American culture. Following Tripmaster Monkey,
Kingston coedited The Literature of California, Vol-
ume 1 (2000), and published a collection of lectures
and poems, To Be the Poet (2002), which details her
renewed interest in poetry and includes selections
from recent work. In 2003 Kingston published The
FIFTH BOOK OF PEACE, her longest book to date, in
which she alternates sections of autobiographical
prose and essays on pacifism with the continued
fictional story of Wittman Ah Sing.
Throughout her writing career Kingston has
held several teaching positions at various col-
leges and universities, and since 1990 she has been
a Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor at UC
Berkeley.
Bibliography
Kingston, Maxine Hong. “ ‘As Truthful as Possible’:
An Interview with Maxine Hong Kingston,” by
Eric James Schroeder. Writing on the Edge 7, no. 2
(Spring/Summer 1996): 83–96.
Skenazy, Paul, and Tera Martin, eds. Conversations
with Maxine Hong Kingston. Literary Conversa-
tions Series. Jackson: University Press of Missis-
sippi, 1998.
Eric G. Waggoner
Kirchner, Bharti (1941?– )
Born and raised in India, Bharti Kirchner came to
the United States for her graduate education and
worked as a systems engineer for IBM and Bank
of America before becoming a writer. The author
of four acclaimed vegetarian cookbooks and four
novels about India and the Indian-American expe-
rience, she also has written numerous articles for
major magazines and has published several short
stories.
Her debut novel, Shiva Dancing, tells the story
of Meena, a young Rajasthani girl who is to be
married at age seven to another child, Vishnu,
in her village. Bandits abduct her during the cer-
emony, and she is rescued by an American cou-
ple who later adopt her. Meena grows up in the
United States, becomes a software engineer, and
gets involved with an American who is an Indo-
phile. She searches for her roots and pines for her
lost first love, her child-husband Vishnu, and re-
turns to India.
In her second novel, Sharmila’s Book, Kirchner
writes of an Indo-American woman, Sharmila,
who is disillusioned with dating and romance and
returns to India to have an arranged marriage with
a rich man. She discovers India and learns about
herself and her fiancé. In DARJEELING, a more am-
bitious novel, the author traces the fortunes of two
sisters who fall in love with the same man and have
a fall-out when one marries him. The marriage
falls apart, and the two sisters who now live in
North America both return to Darjeeling to their
grandmother and their tea estate. Eventually, the
sisters resolve their differences and find love and
happiness. In PASTRIES, Kirchner brings her pas-
sion for cooking and food into the plotline of her
novel. Her protagonist, Sunya, is a Seattle baker of
Indian origin who runs a small boutique bakery.
She is caught up in a competitive war with a na-
tional bakery chain that threatens to put her out
of business. Her stresses lead to a “baker’s block,”
and she travels to Japan to seek healing in a Zen
bakery. In Japan, she finds her confidence and re-
solves issues with her father, who had abandoned
her as an infant. Eventually, Sunya finds peace and
happiness when she saves her bakery.
Kirchner writes romantic fiction focused on the
transcontinental lives of Indo-American women.
Several themes inform her fiction: the clash of
cultures, the importance of female autonomy inKirchner, Bharti 153