The character arc of Amy Tan
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 19 February 1952 in Oakland, California, the second of three children of Chinese immigrants. Between then and now sit a father who read the thesaurus with her because he liked what a word contains, the death of that father and her older brother from brain tumours within six months of each other when she was fifteen, a high school finished in Switzerland, a mother's hidden first family, degrees in English and linguistics, ninety hour weeks as a business writer under invented names, a writing workshop in 1985, The Joy Luck Club in 1989, a trip to China to meet three half sisters, and a national medal. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Amy Tan?
Two deaths in six months, and the book that came out of it.
Her father was an electrical engineer and a Baptist minister who had come to the United States to get away from the Chinese Civil War. He and Amy read the thesaurus together, because, she has said, he was very interested in what a word contains. That is where she dates the start of wanting to write: she wanted to use words to make stories that would let her be understood.
When she was fifteen her father and her older brother both died of brain tumours, within six months of each other. Her mother moved what was left of the family to Switzerland, where Amy finished school. It was there that she learned her mother had been married before, in China, and had left four children behind in Shanghai. That fact sat in her for twenty years and became her first novel.
She dropped out of one college to follow a boyfriend to another and did not speak to her mother for six months. She married him in 1974 and is married to him still. She took a bachelor's and a master's in English and linguistics and started doctoral work, and in the meantime worked as a switchboard operator, a carhop, a bartender and a pizza maker. Then she became a freelance business writer, producing copy for large companies under names that did not sound Chinese, at ninety hours a week.
Early in 1985 she started a novel and joined a writers' workshop to work on it. The teacher there read her thirteen page draft and saw a dozen stories in it, and told her to send work to magazines. Two published her, one turned her down. An agent signed her in 1987, and in December of that year a publisher paid fifty thousand dollars for the book. She told her husband it would be off the shelves in six weeks. The hardback went through twenty seven printings before the paperback appeared, the paperback rights sold for one point two million dollars, and by 1991 it was in seventeen languages.
She travelled to China with her mother in 1987 and met her three half sisters. Six more novels followed, two children's books, and a memoir in 2017 that set out the deaths, the half sisters, the difficult relationship with her mother and her own illness. She sang backup in a garage band of authors that raised more than a million dollars for literacy. In 2021 she received the National Humanities Medal, and in 2024 she published a book of her own bird drawings.
The moments
Amy Tan's timeline.
The 1960s
The thesaurus, together
Everyday, and it changed everything. A father and a daughter reading a book of words for pleasure.
Her father and her brother
Setback, and it changed everything. Fifteen years old, and two funerals in the same year.
School finished in Switzerland
Milestone, and it changed her direction. A different continent, and the rest of school to get through.
Four children in Shanghai
Milestone, and it changed everything. Half a family she had not known existed, on the other side of the world.
The 1970s
She marries Lou
Milestone, and it changed her direction. A blind date, an argument with her mother, and a marriage that has lasted.
The 1980s
Ninety hours a week
Everyday. Brochures for telephone companies, signed with a name that was not hers.
Keep the ninety hour weeks
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: start the novel anyway, taken, or stay a business writer. The book was in seventeen languages by 1991 and a film by 1993.
A dozen stories in thirteen pages
Milestone, and it changed everything. A teacher read thirteen pages and told her there was a book in there.
Three half sisters
Milestone, and it changed everything. The daughters left in Shanghai, standing in front of her at last.
Fifty thousand dollars
Milestone, and it changed her direction. She said no to six publishers before she said yes to one.
The Joy Luck Club
Milestone, and it changed everything. She thought it would vanish in six weeks. It went into seventeen languages.
The 1990s
An illness she names herself
Setback, and it changed everything. Ill, unexplained, and she started a fund for children in the same position.
The 2010s
The unvarnished one
Milestone, and it changed her direction. The same story again, this time with nothing made up.
The 2020s
The National Humanities Medal
Milestone, and it changed her direction. The canon she was told she was outside of, officially widened.
Birds, drawn by hand
Milestone. Seventy two years old, and a new book of her own drawings.
The drawing pencil is still out and the birds keep landing in the garden. What it has set moving is on a million bedside tables: daughters who could finally name what was going on between them and their mothers, because one woman wrote it down and refused to tidy it.
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Amy Tan: frequently asked questions
What people ask about her line.
What is Amy Tan's character arc?
What inspired Amy Tan to write The Joy Luck Club?
How successful was Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club?
What did Amy Tan do before she was a novelist?
What has Amy Tan written besides The Joy Luck Club?
What awards has Amy Tan received?
Where does this timeline of Amy Tan's life come from?
More character arcs
Lives that rhyme with her.
Sources
- Amy Tan, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- Her own 2017 memoir, as summarised there, for the deaths of her father and brother, the half sisters and her illness.
- Publishing records for The Joy Luck Club, its printings, its paperback rights and its translations.
- The private detail of her mother's suffering is recorded in the source and deliberately left off this page.