Amy Tan received her bachelor's and master's degrees in English and linguistics from San José State University and later did doctoral linguistics studies at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley. The Kitchen God's Wife(1991) Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat, (1994) and The Hundred Secret Senses (1995), etc. are her other renowned novels.源/自:吹冰:;论-文'网www.chuibin.com

     The Joy Luck Club is Amy Tan’s first and best known novel. In the book, the Joy Luck Club is created by four immigrant Chinese women settled in San Francisco where they play Chinese Mahjong together regularly. Gradually the club becomes a spiritual heaven where they pour hearts to each other. The novel alternates from the tragic and miserable lives of the four mothers in pre-Revolutionary China to the modern and chaotic lives of the daughters in the 20th century in America. Apparently, the mothers, clinging to Chinese traditions, view the world with their experience from previous life in China while their daughters, all American-born, can’t understand Chinese culture. So conflicts constantly happen between them. After a series of confrontations and fights, the two generations begin to understand each other and they are finally brought together by their mutual deep love. 

     Written in 1989, a time of profound changes around the world, The Joy Luck Club was intended to unveil the mysterious Chinese culture to the Western world. The book is a huge success and won Amy Tan a great many literature awards.

     The later half of the 20th century has witnessed a world trend of seeking cultural roots. Nations around the world looked for the roots of their nation's culture from different areas. China also embraced the trend of the times which is best exemplified by those overseas Chinese who devoted a great deal of enthusiasm to traditional Chinese culture and created large numbers of literary works. One of the most representitive one is The Joy Luck Club. As the second-generation immigrants in America and other countries, writers like Amy Tan have a much deeper understanding of the Western culture than their parents who, as first-generation immigrants, neither totally integrate in the Western world nor discard Chinese traditions and their lives in China. In such a complicated cultural background of the world, The Joy Luck Club is a vivid reflection of such cultural clashes.

      What is more, Amy Tan’s mother porced with an abusive man in China but she lost custody of her three daughters. She was forced to leave them alone when she escaped on the last boat to Shanghai in 1949. This event shocked Amy Tan greatly and became the source of her creation.

2. Literature Review

     During the past thirty years, there appeared a flourishing development of Chinese American literature. Amy Tan, a famous contemporary Chinese American writer, promotes the integration of Chinese American culture in her way. Her first book The Joy Luck Club, published in 1949, won the Bay Ares Book Reviewers award for best book fiction and the American Library Association award for best book for young adults, and was a nominee for the prestigious National Book critics Circle award. In1994, it was translated into 20 languages. Thus Amy Tan became the best writer among the Chinese American people overnight.