On November 13, 2023, the Subir and Malini Foundation Distinguished Speakers Series welcomed Maxine Hong Kingston to the University of Southern California. Kingston appeared at Bovard Auditorium in an event presented by the USC Dornsife Department of English and USC Visions & Voices, with additional support from KCRW, and co-sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and the USC Center for Transpacific Studies. Kingston read from her work, including an unpublished diary/essay about a visit to the border, and engaged in a wide-ranging conversation with USC Professor and Air/Light editor David L. Ulin.

Air/Light is delighted to present a video of this interview.

Maxine Hong Kingston is the author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey, and The Fifth Book of Peace, among other works. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award, and the Emerson-Thoreau Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She received the National Humanities Medal from President Clinton, and the National Medal of Arts from President Obama. She is a Living Treasure of Hawai’i, a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, and lives in Oakland, California.

David L. Ulin is Professor of the Practice of English at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, and editor of the journal Air/Light. He is the author or editor of nearly twenty books, including the novel Thirteen Question Method, and Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and Ucross Foundation. For Library of America, he has edited Didion: The 1960s and 70s and Didion: The 1980s and 90s.