Amy Tan

A new novel from the internationally bestselling author of 'The Joy Luck Club'. In turn-of-the-century Shanghai, Violet Minturn is raised by her American mother, the mistress of the city's most renowned courtesan house. When the revolution comes, a cruel deception forces Violet to become a virgin courtesan. 'The Valley of Amazement' is the story of three women, bound by blood and betrayal. But, as she struggles to understand her heritage, it is Violet's determination to forge her own destiny that propels this bittersweet tale of family secrets, changing identities and lost love.

From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers--featuring cover art by Jessica Hische It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's recent film "Moonrise Kingdom" to Penguin's own bestsellers "Committed "and "Rules of Civility." With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische's hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series debuted with an 'A' for Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," a 'B' for Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre," and a 'C' for Willa Cather's "My Antonia." It continues with more perennial classics, perfect to give as elegant gifts or to showcase on your own shelves. T is for Tan. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between these four women and their American-born daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined.

Luling Liu Young és una xinesa de setanta-set anys, emigrada als Estats Units, que pateix dAlzheimer. Un bon dia, intentant posar ordre a lapartament de Luling, la seva filla Ruth, que col·labora en llibres desoterisme i autoajuda, troba un feix de papers escrits en xines que son testimoni de la memoria de la seva familia. Quan Ruth troba, a la fi, una persona que li tradueix els papers, descobrira les viencies dinfantesa i joventut de la seva mare en un poblet anomenat Cor immortal, i on es desvelara un gran secret que lha turmentada durant molts anys.

Durante más de cincuenta años Winnie y Helen ocultaron sus peores secretos. Pero, cuando Helen está a punto de morir, Winnie decide contarle todo a su hija Pearl, incluso la terrible verdad que ignora la propia Helen. Así despega esta fabulosa historia que nos conduce desde Shanghai en los años veinte, a través de una China envuelta en guerras, hasta Estados Unidos, adonde llega Winnie en 1949. Ignorando que Pearl oculta también su propio secreto, Winnie le confiesa cómo confundió el amor con el abandono de sí misma. Explica por qué la lealtad no debería confundirse con el sometimiento. Comenta qué puede ocurrir cuando la esperanza ya no es sino instinto de supervivencia. Cuenta por qué es posible, y a veces necesario, vivir una vida llena de contradicciones. En su emocionante relato, Winnie mezcla tabúes sociales, historias de ancianas esposas y de guerras, el largo aprendizaje personal hasta llegar a ser algo más que la simple «esposa del Dios del Fuego». En una entrevista con motivo de la publicación en Estados Unidos, en junio de 1991, de Laesposa del Dios del Fuego, dijo Amy Tan irónicamente : «Siento un gran alivio porque ahora sé que nunca más me sentiré obligada a escribir una segunda novela». Y es que las segundas novelas son siempre todo un desafío, particularmente cuando la primera ha sido uno de los éxitos más sorprendentes y fulgurantes de los últimos años. Pero Amy Tan puede dormir tranquila : La esposa del Dios del Fuego fue inesperadamente recibida con entusiasmo por la crítica, e inmediatamente se colocó durante varias semanas en el primer lugar entre loslibros más vendidos en su país

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The new novel from the internationally bestselling author of 'The Joy Luck Club'. In fin de siecle Shanghai, Violet Minturn grows up at Hidden Jade Path, the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when revolution comes, she is separated from her mother and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Both Chinese and American, Violet moves between these cultural worlds, becoming a shrewd businesswoman who deals in seduction and illusion. But her successes belie her private turmoil. Violet's need for answers propels her on a quest of discovery: a journey to make sense of her life, to right the wrongs of the past - to find love requited. Spanning fifty years and two continents, 'The Valley of Amazement' dramatises the collapse of China's imperial dynasty and the secret life of the courtesan house. Unfolding old family secrets, this novel returns readers to the compelling territory of 'The Joy Luck Club'. With her characteristic wisdom, grace and humour, she conjures a story of the inheritance of love, its mysteries and betrayals, and its illusions and truths.

Shanghai, 1905. Violet Minturn is the young daughter of the American mistress of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when revolution arrives in the city, she is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet moves effortlessly between the cultural worlds of East and West, quickly becoming a shrewd businesswoman who deals in seduction and illusion. But her successes belie her private struggle to understand who she really is and her search for a home in the world. Lucia, Violet's mother, nurses wounds of her own, first sustained when, as a teenager, she fell blindly in love with a Chinese painter and followed him from San Francisco to Shanghai, only to be confronted with the shocking reality of the vast cultural differences between them. Violet's need for answers will propel both her and her mother on separate quests of discovery: journeys to make sense of their lives, of the men-fathers, lovers, sons- who have shaped them, and of the ways we fail one another and our children despite our best attempts to love and be loved.Spanning fifty years and two continents, THE VALLEY OF AMAZEMENT resurrects lost worlds: from the moment when China's imperial dynasty collapsed, a Republic arose, and foreign trade became the lifeblood of Shanghai, to the inner workings of courtesan houses and the lives of the foreign "Shanghailanders" living in the International Settlement, both erased by World War II. It is also a deeply evocative narrative of family secrets, the legacy of trauma, and the profound connections between mothers and daughters, which returns readers to the compelling territory Amy Tan so expertly mapped in THE JOY LUCK CLUB. With her characteristic wisdom, grace, and humor, she conjures a story of the inheritance of love, its mysteries and senses, and its illusions and truths.

"Si puo continuare a essere vivi anche da morti? Evidentemente si, dato che questo e successo a lei. Bibi Chen, un'antiquaria di origini cinesi, e morta a San Francisco in circostanze misteriose. Bibi ricorda tutto, ma non il proprio decesso, sul quale indaga la polizia. Bibi vede tutto, compreso il proprio funerale e gli amici affranti, fra cui i dodici che avrebbe dovuto guidare in un viaggio culturale in Cina e Birmania da lei stessa organizzato. Bibi sente tutto, a tratti anche i pensieri altrui. Sono ""i doni del Buddha"", quasi una compensazione della fisicita perduta. I dodici amici decidono di partire ugualmente e Bibi li accompagna, aleggiando sui loro passi, a loro insaputa, proteggendoli come puo. Costretti a lasciare la Cina prima del previsto per i guai provocati dalla loro ignoranza di turisti occidentali privi di una guida adeguata, arrivano in Birmania e, la mattina di Natale, si verifica un altro evento strano e inquietante: undici dei dodici viaggiatori s'imbarcano per una gita sul Lago Inle e spariscono. Mescolando con abile ironia la dimensione metafisica di un io narrante post-mortem al realismo quanto mai attuale del sequestro dei turisti, alle storie personali dei protagonisti - il playboy onesto, l'ingenua attivista dei diritti umani, l'ipocondriaca ecc. - Amy Tan tesse un romanzo che, sotto l'apparente bonomia, non risparmia nessuno: ne l'autoritarismo dei regimi illiberali ne l'individualismo narcisistico del nostro mondo. "

Fascinante mezcla de fantasía étnica, libro de viajes, choque de costumbres, apuntes sobre arte, budismo, colorido exotismo e historias que componen una narración variada y con buen ritmo Doce amigos estadounidenses están a punto de emprender el viaje de su vida, desde el pie del Himalaya en China hacia las selvas inexploradas de Birmania, para profundizar en el arte y la cultura de ambos países. La mañana del día de Navidad, todos menos uno -que sufre resaca- inician una excursión de medio día, pero ya no regresan. Los diez amigos se encuentran en medio de la selva, en un poblado secreto donde se oculta una tribu medio extinguida que ve en uno de ellos a su salvador, el líder que han estado esperando para que les proteja de la violencia del régimen militar birmano.

Un viaje de oriente a occidenteEn 1949, cuatro mujeres chinas que recientemente han emigrado a San Francisco inician una serie de reuniones durante las que comen dim sum, juegan al mah-jong y hablan. Unidas por lo que comparten, la perdida y la esperanza, se hacen llamar El Club de la Buena Estrella. Con grandes dosis de ingenio y de sensibilidad, Amy Tan explora la conexion a veces dolorosa y a veces tierna, pero siempre profunda, entre las protagonistas y sus hijas ya nacidas en Estados Unidos, un mundo tan distinto al suyo. A medida que cada una de ellas nos va revelando sus secretos y nos van mostrando la verdad sobre sus vidas, los hilos se van entrelazando de una manera casi magica.

A pious man explained to his followers: "It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred lives. I drop my net in the lake and scoop out a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. 'Don't be scared,' I tell those fishes. 'I am saving you from drowning.' Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and I sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more nets so I can save more fishes." - Anonymous Twelve American tourists join an art expedition that begins in the Himalayan foothills of China - dubbed the true Shangri-La - and heads south into the jungles of Burma. But after the mysterious death of their tour leader, the carefully laid plans fall apart, and disharmony breaks out among the pleasure-seekers as they come to discover that the Burma Road is paved with less-than-honorable intentions, questionable food, and tribal curses. And then, on Christmas morning, eleven of the travelers boat across a misty lake for a sunrise cruise - and disappear. Drawing from the current political reality in Burma and woven with pure confabulation, Amy Tan's picaresque novel poses the question: How can we discern what is real and what is fiction, in everything we see? How do we know what to believe?

Amy Tan has touched millions of readers with haunting and sympathetic novels of cultural complexity and profound empathy. With the same spirit and humor that characterize her acclaimed novels, she now shares her insight into her own life and how she escaped the curses of her past to make a future of her own. She takes us on a journey from her childhood of tragedy and comedy to the present day and her arrival as one of the world's best-loved novelists. Whether recalling arguments with her mother in suburban California or introducing us to the ghosts that inhabit her computer, The Opposite of Fate offers vivid portraits of choices, attitudes, charms, and luck in action—a refreshing antidote to the world-weariness and uncertainties we all face today.

Unbearably moving, intensely passionate, deeply personal account of life as seen through the eyes of one of America's best-loved novelistsWhen I began writing this history, I let go of my doubts. I trusted the ghosts of my imagination. They showed me the hundred secret senses. And what I wrote is what I discovered about the endurance of love. So writes Amy Tan at the beginning of this remarkably candid insight into her life. Tan takes us on a journey from her childhood, as a sensitive but intelligent young Chinese American, ashamed of her parents' Chinese ways, to the present day and her position as one of the world's best-loved novelists. She talks of beauty and how she was perceived as a teenager in a country where Marilyn Monroe was the ultimate sex symbol. She describes the daily difficulties of being at once American and Chinese and yet feeling at times like she was truly neither. Most significantly, and heartbreakingly, she tells the history of her family: the grandmother who committed suicide as the only means of defiance open to her against a husband who ignored her wishes; her remarkable mother, whose first husband had her jailed when she tried to leave him; and the shocking deaths of both her father and husband when Amy was just 14. How this weight of history has brought itself to bear on the adult Amy looms large in her own story. Ghosts, chance and fate have played a part in her life, and The Opposite of Fate is an insight into those ancestors, the women who 'never let me forget why these stories need to be told. '

Novela de encuentro entre dos hermanas y, especialmente, entre dos culturas. El secreto de Kwan, que ejerce de madre espiritual de su hermana Olivia, se expresa en todo su esplendor durante un viaje a China. Sobre los muertos, la reencarnación, los fantasmas y misterios que nos rodean, por la afamada autora de El club de la buena estrella.

El encuentro entre dos culturas tan opuestas como la china y la estadounidense, es el tema central de esta obra. Guerra, silencio y violencia desde un Shangai mítico a una América vital.

Amy Tan's fifth novel takes a group of travelers and strands them in the jungles of Myanmar when a bridge they are crossing collapses. There, they tangle with a local tribe who declare one of their party a god who can save them from the ruthless militarist regime. The tourists include an expert on tropical plants, a famous dog trainer, a teenage boy, and the narrator--the ghost of a woman who was prevented from joining the tour by her sudden death.