AMY TAN was born in 1952 in Oakland, California. She received her B.A. (English and Linguistics) and M.A. (Linguistics) from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her past jobs have included: switchboard operator; A & W carhop; Round Table bartender and pizza maker; Language Development Consultant to programs for developmentally disabled children; copywriter to a medical education newsletter; freelance business writer to high-tech companies, specializing in telecommunications.

He first story, “End Game” was published in 1986 and her first novel, THE JOY LUCK CLUB IN 1989. THE JOY LUCK CLUB was nominated for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award ,the recipient of the Commonwealth Gold Award and the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, and was made into a film in 1994.

Ms. Tan lives in California with her husband of 24 years, Lou DeMattei, and her cat, Sagwa and dog, Bubba Zo.

“My mother insists I’ve always had the gift of seeing ghosts. ‘When you little girl time, only three year old,’ she said to me recently, ‘ you told me afraid go bathroom. Ghost, you crying. I never teach you this word. So must be true. You see ghost.’ “It is when pain is almost unendurable that I remember what my mother instilled in me: a belief not so much in ghosts but in the limitlessness of love. And then I know how love releases hope, how hope transforms the unknowable, the intangible into something you can grasp and hold close to your heart.

Amy Tan on writing THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES

• THE JOY LUCK CLUB (1989, Putnam)
  
• THE KITCHEN GOD’S WIFE (1991, Putnam)
  
• THE MOON LADY (1992, Macmillan) (children’s)
  
• THE CHINESE SIAMESE CAT (1994, Macmillan) (children’s)
  

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