Customer Reviews

Hawai'i One Summer (A Latitude 20 Book)

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HAWAI'I ONE SUMMER is probably Kingston's least-read work, but I think it's the piece which captures this writer's clear and graceful prose style the best. Her essays range from surfing to dishwashing. Who'd ever guess that someone could write a substantial essay on a mundane activity like dishwashing? Well, Maxine Hong Kingston achieved this task. HAWAI'I ONE SUMMER would probably be good to use in an expository writing course.

A memoir of Maxine Hong Kingston's memorable years in Hawai'i, when she went from Viet Nam protests and virtual street existence to pedagogies and mythologies of empowerment that took on national and global impact. This, I find, an insightful, wry, even caustic book on the local literature movements in Hawai'i, always fresh and insightful even when New Yorkerish.

Hawai'i One Summer is a slim collection of luminous essays reflecting diversal topics ranging from surfing to house chores. Indeed, this is the least read book by Hong-Kingston. Her prose is clear and evocative. It is very different from the radical Woman Warrior. It evokes a zen quality, like sipping a soulful cup of ginseng tea.