Biography

Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California, USA; and attended San Jose State University, where she received a master's degree in linguistics. She has written essays for numerous magazines; a few books (including "The Joy Luck Club"; and fiction for such forums as Atlantic as McCall's. She currently lives in San Francisco, CA, USA, with her husband Lou DeMattei.
- IMDb mini biography by: Matt Dicker

2nd-generation Chinese-American author.

Her parents immigrated to the United States from China to escape from the Chinese Civil War. Tan's father was trained as an electric engineer and preached as a Baptist minister.

Worked as a switchboard operator while in high school in the late 1960s.

On strategy: If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.

On love: So sad! That is the saddest part, when you lose someone you love -- that person keeps changing. And later you wonder, is this the same person I lost. Maybe you lost more, maybe less, ten thousand different things that come from your memory or imagination -- and you do not know which is which, which was true, which is false.

On mothering: I love my daughter. She and I have shared my body. There is a part of her mind that is a part of mine. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since.