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A Reader's Guide to Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club
Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club is one of the most well-known and appreciated works by a contemporary Asian-American author. Published in 1989, it was on The New York Times best-seller list for many months and was nominated for many awards. While the novel focuses on relationships between immigrant mothers from China and their American-born daughters, The Joy Luck Club has enjoyed a broad and popular appeal that has cut across lines of both culture and gender.
* Reviews *
This new series makes classic literary works accessible to the high school reader. Students learn about multicultural literature and literary criticism as well as plots, characters, and literary devices and techniques. Loos reveals that Tan, a Chinese American, wanted nothing to do with her Chinese heritage after she left home. Years later, after her mother suffered a serious illness, Tan wanted to know everything about her mother's life in China, even from before she was born. The Joy Luck Club and some of Tan's other novels are autobiographical and bring in many aspects of her Chinese heritage, but at the same time her writing has a broad and popular appeal. Tan states that anyone who has been in a family can relate to her work.
RL
Grades
9-10 IL
Grades
9-12+ GRL
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