Amy Tan

In the mid-1980s, Amy Tan was a successful but unhappy corporate speechwriter. By the end of the decade, she was perched firmly atop the best-seller lists with The Joy Luck Club, with more hugely popular novels to follow. Tans workonce pigeonholed as ethnic literature, a niche market with limited appealresonates with universal themes that cross cultural and ideological boundaries, and proved wildly successful with readers of all stripes. Tender, sincere, complex, honest and uncompromising in its portrayal of Chinese culture and its affect on womenAmy Tans work earned her both praise and excoriation from critics, adoration from fans, and a place as one of A mericas most notable modern writers. This reference work offers an introduction to and overview of Amy Tans life, her body of literature, and her characters, motifs and themes. The main text is comprised of entries covering characters, dates, historical figures and events, allusions, motifs and themes from Tans works, among other topics. The entries combine both critical insights with generous citations from primary and secondary sources. Each entry concludes with a selected bibliography. There is also a chronology of Tans family history and her life. Appendices provide an overlapping timeline of historical andfictional events in Tans work; a glossary of foreign terms found in her writing; and a list of related writing and research topics. An extensive bibliography and a comprehensive index accompany the text.