Amy Tan

Beloved Novelist and Essayist

Born in the U.S. to immigrant parents from China, Amy Tan rejected her mother’s expectations that she become a doctor and concert pianist. She chose to write fiction instead. She is best known for the bestselling novel The Joy Luck Club, which was adapted into a 1993 film, among other well-known novels, short story collections, children’s books, and a memoir. Her most recent book, The Backyard Bird Chronicles (published April 2024) “records – with a novelist’s eye – the birds and other creatures in her own backyard, as well as personal reflections and original color illustrations.”
Amy Tan has been nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the International Orange Prize. In 2021, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She wrote the libretto for her novel The Bonesetter’s Daughter (San Francisco Opera, 2008), and was a band member with the Rock Bottom Remainders, whose members included Stephen King, Dave Barry and Scott Turow.

“Reading (Amy Tan) is like peering into a carved ivory ball that contains numerous smaller balls, each revealing a different design, but all worked from a single source.” – The New York Times Book Review