Maxine Hong Kingston

Writer Maxine Hong Kingston shares her thoughts at the end of the year. Her novel, "Tripmaster Monkey," was a huge critical success in 1989. This year, Kingston lost the only copy of the manuscript for her new novel when her house in Oakland, California burned down earlier this year.

Kingston's new book, Tripmaster Monkey, is about a fifth-generation Chinese American man in the 1960s, who tries to find a balance between his two cultures. She joins Fresh Air to talk about her life as a first-generation immigrant, her relationship with her mother, and how she developed her voice as a storyteller.