Amy Tan

Amy Tan
Tan in 2007
Born	February 19, 1952 (1952-02-19) Oakland, California, USA
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	American
Genres	Novel
Notable work(s)	The Joy Luck Club
amytan.net

Amy Tan
Chinese	譚恩美
Transcriptions Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Tán Enmei

Amy Tan (born February 19, 1952) is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships. Her most well-known work is The Joy Luck Club, which has been translated into 35 languages. In 1993, the book was adapted into a commercially successful film.

Tan has written several other bestselling novels, including The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter's Daughter and Saving Fish from Drowning. She also wrote a collection of non-fiction essays entitled The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings. Her most recent novel Saving Fish from Drowning explores the tribulations experienced by a group of people who disappear while on an art expedition in the jungles of Burma. In addition to these, Tan has written two children's books: The Moon Lady (1992) and Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat (1994), which was turned into an animated series which aired on PBS. She also appeared on PBS in a short spot encouraging children to write.

Personal life

Tan was born in Oakland, California. She is the second of three children born to Chinese immigrants Daisy (née Li), who was forced to leave her three daughters from a previous marriage behind in Shanghai, and John Tan, an electrical engineer and Baptist minister. This incident provided the basis for Tan's first novel, 1989 New York Times bestseller The Joy Luck Club. When Tan was 15 years old, her older brother Peter and father both died of brain tumors within a year of each other. Daisy moved Amy and her younger brother John Jr. to Switzerland, where Amy finished high school. During this period, Amy learned about her mother's former marriage to an abusive man in China, and of their four children, including three daughters and a son who died as a toddler. In 1987 Amy traveled with Daisy to China. There, Amy met her three half-sisters.

Tan received her bachelor's and master's degrees in English and linguistics from San José State University, and later did doctoral linguistics studies at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley.

She resides in Sausalito, California with her husband, Louis DeMattei, a tax accountant whom she met on a blind date and married in 1974.

Tan was featured on The Simpsons episode "Insane Clown Poppy" on Season 12, Episode 3.

Bibliography

Novels

• The Joy Luck Club (1989)
• The Kitchen God's Wife (1991)
• The Hundred Secret Senses (1995)
• The Bonesetter's Daughter (2001)
• Saving Fish from Drowning (2005)
• Rules for Virgins (2011)
• The Valley of Amazement (2012)

Children's books

• The Moon Lady, illustrated by Gretchen Schields (1992)
• Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat, illustrated by Gretchen Schields (1994)

Non-fiction

• The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings (2003)
• Mid-Life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America With Three Cords and an Attitude (with Dave Barry, Stephen King, Tabitha King, Barbara Kingsolver) (1994)
• Mother (with Maya Angelou, Mary Higgins Clark) (1996)
• The Best American Short Stories 1999 (Editor, with Katrina Kenison) (1999)

Awards

• Finalist National Book Award
• Finalist National Book Critics Circle Award
• Finalist Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize
• Bay Area Book Reviewers Award
• Commonwealth Gold Award
• American Library Association's Notable Books
• American Library Association's Best Book for Young Adults
• Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature Honorable Mention
• Selected for the National Endowment for the Arts' Big Read
• New York Times Notable Book
• Booklist Editors Choice
• Finalist for the Orange Prize
• Nominated for the Orange Prize
• Nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
• Audie Award: Best Non-fiction, Abridged
• Parents' Choice Award, Best Television Program for Children
• Shortlisted British Academy of Film and Television Arts award, best screenplay adaptation
• Shortlisted WGA Award, best screenplay adaptation
• Academy of Achievement, Golden Plate Award

Quotes

• "I think books were my salvation, they saved me from being miserable."
• "You see what power is – holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them" Tan, Amy (1991). The Kitchen God's Wife. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 387. ISBN 0-399-13578-2. 
• "I'm sitting in the $4.95 bookstore bleachers along with Shakespeare, Conrad and Joyce," she said. "I acknowledge that there is a fundamental difference that separates us. I am a contemporary author and they are not. And since I'm not dead yet, I can talk back." (The Opposite of Fate 10)

See also

• Chinese American literature

External links

• Works by or about Amy Tan in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Official website
• 'Reading in Reverse', review of The Opposite of Fate in the Oxonian Review