The Shanghai Connection

Amy Tan

Amy Tan

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Amy Tan

Amy Tan
Born February 19, 1952 (1952-02-19) (age 58)
Oakland, California, United States
Occupation Writer
Nationality American
Genres novel

amytan.net
Amy Tan
Chinese 譚恩美

Amy Tan (born February 19, 1952) is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships. In 1993, Tan's adaptation of her first novel, The Joy Luck Club, became a commercially successful film. The book has been translated into 35 languages.

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 airing on PBS. She also appeared on PBS in a short spot encouraging children to write.

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[edit] Personal life

Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California to Chinese immigrants John Tan, an electrical engineer and Baptist minister, and Daisy, who was forced to leave her three daughters from a previous marriage behind in Shanghai. This incident provided the basis for Tan's first novel, 1989 New York Times bestseller The Joy Luck Club.[1]

Amy is the middle child and only daughter among Daisy and John Tan's three children. In the late 1960s Amy's sixteen-year-old brother Peter died of a brain tumor. Within a year of Peter's death, Amy's father died of the same disease. After these family tragedies, Daisy moved Amy and her younger brother John Jr. to Switzerland, where Amy finished high school.[2] 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 finally met her three half-sisters.[3]

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.[4]

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

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Novels

[edit] Children's books

 

[edit] Nonfiction

  • The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings (2003)[5]

[edit] As editor or contributor

[edit] Awards

[edit] Quotes

  • "I think books were my salvation, they saved me from being miserable."[6]
  • "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)[7]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Amy Tan Biography". http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tan0bio-1. Retrieved May 4, 2010. 
  2. ^ "The Archives of my Personality", address to American Association of Museums General Session (Los Angeles), May 26, 2010
  3. ^ "Penguin Reading Guides - The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan". http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/joy_luck_club.html. Retrieved August 7, 2010. 
  4. ^ "Amy Tan Biography". http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tan0bio-1. Retrieved July 19, 2008. 
  5. ^ "Reference for: Novels, Series contributed to, klfjghiojedbmhlfvnjujhh gfand Non fiction". Fantasticfiction.co.uk. http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/t/amy-tan/. Retrieved June 14, 2010. 
  6. ^ "Amy Tan Interview - page 2 / 7 - Academy of Achievement". Achievement.org. January 16, 2008. http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tan0int-2. Retrieved June 14, 2010. 
  7. ^ "Biography of Amy Tan". Amytan.net. http://www.amytan.net/ATBiography.aspx. Retrieved June 14, 2010. 

[edit] External links