The Joy Luck Club

By (author) Tan, Amy
Description:

Four Chinese women, four America daughters - can they learn to understand each other?

In 1949 a group of Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters’ futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers’ advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives – until their own inner crises reveal how much they’ve inherited of their mothers’ pasts.

''Pure enchantment'' Mail on Sunday

‘Honest, moving and beautifully courageous’ Alice Walker

''An ambitious saga that''s impossible to read without wanting to call your Mum'' Stylist

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One of my favorite books. From the moment I first started reading it, I knew it was going to be incredible. For me, it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever
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In this deft and original debut, Amy Tan shows that she is both a consummate storyteller and writer whose prose manages to be emotionally charged without a trace of sentimentality
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A brilliant first novel... Tan writes from the heart, cutting sharp edges with wit, wisdom and a gentle and delicate precision... The novel covers a remarkable spectrum and reveals the private secrets and ghosts that haunt, torment - and comfort. Completely compelling
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That rare, mesmerizing novel that one always seeks but seldom finds...a pure joy to read
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An extremely absorbing novel
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Beautifully written...a jewel of a book
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So much happens in this book, and there are so many voices, yet Tan seems to bind the strands together so effortlessly
Biographical note:
Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California in 1952, two and a half years after her parents emigrated to the US. Though her parents hoped she would become a neurosurgeon by trade and a concert pianist by hobby, instead she became an administrator of programmes for disabled children and later a reporter and editor. She visited China for the first time in 1987 and found it was just how her mother had said: ''As soon as my feet touched China, I became Chinese.'' Amy Tan lives in San Francisco with her husband.