Tan, Amy, 1952-

Amy Ruth Tan (born February 19, 1952) is an American author of Chinese heritage, best known for the novel The Joy Luck Club (1989), which was adapted into a 1993 film. She is also known for other novels, short story collections, children's books, and a memoir.

Tan has written several other novels, including The Kitchen God's Wife (1991), The Hundred Secret Senses (1995), The Bonesetter's Daughter (2001), Saving Fish from Drowning (2005), and The Valley of Amazement (2013). Tan has also written two children's books: The Moon Lady (1992) and Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat (1994), which was turned into an animated series that aired on PBS. Tan's latest book is a memoir entitled Where The Past Begins: A Writer's Memoir (2017).[1] Tan was born in Oakland, California. She is the second of three children born to Chinese immigrants John and Daisy Tan. Tan attended Marian A. Peterson High School in Sunnyvale for one year. When she was fifteen years old, her father and older brother Peter both died of brain tumors within six months of each other.[4]

Daisy subsequently moved Amy and her younger brother, John Jr., to Switzerland, where Amy finished high school at the Institut Monte Rosa, Montreux.[5] During this period, Amy learned about her mother's previous marriage to another man in China, of their four children (a son who died as a toddler and three daughters), and how her mother left these children behind in Shanghai. This incident was a key part of the basis for Tan's first novel, The Joy Luck Club.[3] In 1987, Amy traveled with Daisy to China, where she met her three half-sisters.[6] Tan later received bachelor's and master's degrees in English and linguistics from San José State University. She took doctoral courses in linguistics at University of California, Santa Cruz and University of California, Berkeley.[11]