Literary Giant - Amy Tan

Amy Tan was born February 19, 1952 in Oakland, California to parents who were Chinese immigrants. John Tan, her father, was a Baptist minister and electrical engineer who moved to America to escape the civil war in China. Her mother, Daisy, had survived more than one tragedy before she escaped on the last boat to leave Shanghai before the communist takeover in 1949. She had divorced her abusive husband and been forced to leave her three daughters behind. These events in her mother’s life inspired Amy’s novel “The Kitchen God’s Wife”.

John and Daisy also had two boys. They lived in the San Francisco Bay area of California. Amy’s father and oldest brother both died of brain tumors within a year of each other. Daisy moved Amy and her remaining brother to Switzerland where Amy finished high school and started at a Baptist college her mother had picked out. She wanted Amy to be a doctor and a concert pianist. Amy defied her mother by following her boyfriend, Louis DeMattei, to San Jose City College where she studied English and linguistics and eventually received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in these fields.

In 1974 Amy and Louis, an attorney, were married and eventually settled in San Francisco. Amy attended the University of California at Santa Cruz and Berkeley studying for a doctorate in linguistics. She left her studies in 1976 and took a job as a language development consultant with the Alameda county Association for Retarded Citizens. She and a partner had a business writing speeches for salesmen and executives of large corporations. After a dispute she left and became a full time freelance writer. She prospered but found little satisfaction with her work. She studied jazz piano trying to build on the forced musical training of her childhood. This was when she started writing fiction. Her first story “Endgame” earned her a place in the Squaw Valley writer’s workshop taught by novelist Oakley Hall. The story was printed in FM (a literary magazine) and Seventeen. With the completion of her second story, “Waiting Between the Trees”, literary agent Sandra Dijkstra took her on as a client.

After Amy’s mother had recovered from an illness, she took her to China to visit with the daughter she had left behind. This trip brought mother and daughter closer together and inspired Amy to finish the book of stories as her agent had encouraged. The completed stories and an outline of the remaining stories would be turned into the best selling book, “The Joy Luck Club”. She had received a $50,000 advance from G.P. Putnam’s Sons which allowed her to stop her business writing and finish the book. It was on the NY Times best seller list for 8 months. The paperback rights went for 1.23 million. It has been translated into 17 languages. She has since written “The Kitchen God’s Wife”, “The Hundred Secret Senses” and the “Bonesetter’s Daughter” plus 2 children’s books, “The Moon Lady” and “The Chinese Siamese Cat”. She also wrote “The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings”. She has received numerous awards for her writing.

She is still married to Lou DeMattei, still residing in San Francisco and New York with their Yorkshire terriers Bubba and Lilli. In 1999 Amy contracted Lyme disease, probably while hiking. It was debilitating and hindered her ability to write. She has worked to bring awareness to the disease, supported research efforts and helped to found LymeAid 4 Kids.