Memory blocks: the fictional autobiography of

Set alongside the new-scientific and psychoanalytic ideas of Ian McEwan, the narrative strategies of Chinese American writer Maxine Hong Kingston push the exploration of time and memory in a different direction. Her approach is distinct from that of a writer like McEwan, first of all, in the particular sense that it emerges out of the creative tension between two extremely powerful cultural traditions. As for a number of noted British Asian and Asian American authors, Kingston deploys this ‘inter-cultural’ positioning extremely effectively in her work.