Amy Tan  (b. 1952) LINKS First Person: Amy Tan http://www.sunherald.com/1ptan/html/1.htm This site includes a detailed biography of Tan; information on Tan's performance in the Rock Bottom Remainders rock group with Dave Barry; photos of the author; links to interviews and essays by and about the author; and reviews of her work. This is a good place to begin your research on Amy Tan. The Salon Interview: Amy Tan http://www.salon1999.com/12nov1995/feature/tan.html Salon Magazine is an exceptional Internet magazine for arts, entertainment, health, current events, technology and travel. In this brief interview, Tan discusses her success and the pressures thrust upon her as an Asian American writer. Voices from the Gaps: Amy Tan http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/AmyTan.html This site from the University of Minnesota features information on the lives and work of women writers of color. It includes writing by Tan, excellent biographical information, a selected bibliography, and information on dozens of other authors including Gwendolyn Brooks, bell hooks, Maxine Hong Kingston, Bharati Mukherjee, and others. BIOGRAPHY Amy Tan (b. 1952). Born to Chinese immigrants in Oakland, California, Tan remembers that as a child she felt like an American girl trapped in a Chinese body: "There was shame and self-hate. There is this myth that America is a melting pot, but what happens in assimilation is that we end up deliberately choosing the American things — hot dogs and apple pie — and ignoring the Chinese offerings." After attending a small college in Oregon, she worked for IBM as a writer of computer manuals. In 1984 Tan and her mother visited China and met her relatives; there she made the important discovery, as she has said, that "I belonged to my family and my family belonged to China." A year later, back in San Francisco, Tan read Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine and was so impressed by the power of its interlocking stories about another cultural minority, Native Americans, that she began to write short stories herself. One of them was published in a little magazine read by a literary agent in San Diego, who urged Tan to outline a book about the conflicts between different cultures and generations of Chinese mothers and daughters in America. After her agent negotiated a $50,000 advance from Putnam, Tan worked full-time on the first draft of her book The Joy Luck Club (1989) and finished it in four months. Tan's other books are The Kitchen God's Wife (1992); a children's book, The Moon Lady (1992); and The Hundred Secret Senses (1995).

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