Amy Tan
By: Bella Adams
Series: Contemporary world writers
Publisher: Manchester University Press; Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Manchester; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 220
Subjects: Tan, Amy -- Criticism and interpretation
Description: This volume is a comprehensive study of author Amy Tan's work, offering close readings of her texts in the context of broader debates about the representation of identity, history and reality. In contrast with Tan's own American-born narrator, and mainstream critics, this work looks beyond the stereotypes which appear in Tan's books, and explores the ways in which Chinese immigrants and their American relatives struggle to understand each other's "best qualities" via the Chinese tradition of the "talk story". The author emphasizes Tan's American narrators' process of becoming Chinese and discovering "real China", and the significance of the ironic staging of these moments.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [170]-217) and index
Table of contents: title: Contexts and intertexts; title: The Joy Luck Club; title: The kitchen god's wife; title: The hundred secret senses; title: The bonesetter's daughter; title: Critical overview and conclusion