Amy Tan

I'm sitting in the $4.95 bookstore bleachers along with Shakespeare, Conrad and Joyce. 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. -- Amy Tan

American writer of Chinese descent Amy Tan (1952- ) is best known for her novel The Bonesetter's Daughter. She was co-producer and co-screenwriter of the film adaptation of her novel The Joy Luck Club. A common theme running through her work is the mother-daughter relationship and the relationships between Chinese American women and their immigrant parents.

Amy Tan grew up in California, where she was born. When she was eight years old, she had won her first prize in a writing contest for elementary students with an essay entitled "What the Library Means to Me." The novel that greatly influenced her and the first book she ever bought was The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger. Reading The Catcher in the Rye was seen as a mark of rebellion. Her first copy of The Catcher in the Rye was confiscated from her when she was 14 years old, her first experience of censorship

Amy Tan has a master's degree in linguistics from San José State University. She lives with her husband in San Francisco and New York.

Together with Dave Barry, Matt Groening and Stephen King, Amy Tan is a member of the literary garage band Rock Bottom Remainders. Along with Stephen King, she has appeared in an episode of The Simpsons.

Copies of The Bonesetter's Daughter have been registered as BookCrossing books.

BookCrossing books are released into the wild and their progress tracked through the Internet via a unique Book Crossing ID (BCID).


Literature
(c) Keith Parkins 2007 -- November 2007 rev 0