Amy Tan
(1955– )
Amy Tan grew up in a Chinese American family, but as a teenager she wanted desperately to blend into mainstream America. However, she gradually grew to value her family’s culture, and a trip to China when she was thirty-five helped her to rediscover her Chinese heritage.
Before Tan turned her attention to fiction writing, she was a freelance business writer. But in 1985, she submitted a story, which evolved into "Rules of the Game," to a writers’ workshop; out of this story grew her first and highly praised book, The Joy Luck Club (1989), which has since been made into a movie. This book examines the relationships between mothers and daughters in Chinese American families and looks closely at the difficulties faced by the younger women in their struggle to balance the two cultures. Tan went on to write The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), a novel based on her mother’s experiences in pre-Communist China, followed by The Hundred Secret Senses (1995) and The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001). She has also written The Moon Lady (1992) and The Chinese Siamese Cat (1994) for children.
