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Amy Tan

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Amy Tan
Tan in 2007Tan in 2007
BornAmy Tan
(1952-02-19) February 19, 1952 (age 72)
Oakland, California, USA
OccupationWriter
NationalityAmerican
GenreNovelist
Notable worksThe Joy Luck Club
Website
http://www.AmyTanAuthor.com/
Amy Tan
Chinese譚恩美
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinTán 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. Tan is also in a band with several other well-known writers, the Rock Bottom Remainders.

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 attorney 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

Children's books

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)

Amy Tan Biography

Awards

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

References

  1. "Mother As Tormented Muse Amy Tan Drew On A Dark Past For 'Daughter'". New York Daily News. February 27, 2001.
  2. "Amy Tan Biography". Retrieved May 4, 2010.
  3. "The Archives of my Personality", address to American Association of Museums General Session (Los Angeles), May 26, 2010
  4. "Penguin Reading Guides - The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan". Archived from the original on July 24 2010. Retrieved August 7, 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  5. "Amy Tan Biography". Archived from the original on July 02 2008. Retrieved July 19, 2008. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  6. "Reference for: Novels, Series contributed to, and Non fiction". Fantasticfiction.co.uk. Retrieved June 14, 2010.
  7. "Amy Tan Interview - page 2 / 7 - Academy of Achievement". Achievement.org. January 16, 2008. Archived from the original on July 22 2010. Retrieved June 14, 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  8. "Biography of Amy Tan". www.AmyTanAuthor.com. Retrieved June 14, 2010.

External links

Works by Amy Tan
Novels
Other books
Adaptations
See also

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