Amy Ruth Tan (born February 19, 1952) is an American author best known for her novel The Joy Luck Club (1989), which was adapted into a 1993 film.

Tan has written several other novels, including The Kitchen God's Wife (1991), The Hundred Secret Senses (1995), The Bonesetter's Daughter (2001), Saving Fish from Drowning (2005), and The Valley of Amazement (2013).

Tan has also written two children's books: The Moon Lady (1992) and The Chinese Siamese Cat (1994), which was turned into an animated series that aired on PBS.

Her father was an electrical engineer and Baptist minister who traveled to the United States, in order to escape the chaos of the Chinese Civil War.

[7] During this period, Amy learned about her mother's previous marriage to another man in China, of their four children (a son who died as a toddler and three daughters).

[6][12][13] Amy, later, received bachelor's and master's degrees in English and linguistics from San José State University.

[14] While in school, Tan worked several odd jobs—serving as a switchboard operator, carhop, bartender, and pizza maker—before starting a writing career.

As a freelance business writer, she worked on projects for AT&T, IBM, Bank of America, and Pacific Bell, writing under non-Chinese-sounding pseudonyms.

[15] Early in 1985, Tan began writing her first novel, The Joy Luck Club, while working as a business writer.

Before attending the program, Tan read Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine and was "amazed by her voice... [she] could identify with the powerful images, the beautiful language, and such moving stories."

Author Molly Giles, who was teaching at the workshop, encouraged Tan to send some of her writing to magazines.

[22] Tan's second novel, The Kitchen God's Wife, also focuses on the relationship between an immigrant Chinese mother and her American-born daughter.

[6] On its writing inspiration, Tan explained, "My mother said, when I started The Kitchen God's Wife, that she liked The Joy Luck Club very much, it's very fictional, but next time, tell my story."

[27] In the book, using family photographs and journal entries, she writes about the relationship with her mother, the death of her father and brother, stories of her half-sisters and grandmother in China, her diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease, and life as a writer.

[29][30] Tan was the "lead rhythm dominatrix,” backup singer and second tambourine with the Rock Bottom Remainders literary garage band.

)[34] Tan's writing has been praised for its bravery in exploring both the personal struggles and triumphs of immigrant families.

[35] Her first book, The Joy Luck Club, which is considered a prominent contribution to the Modern Period of American literature, was called "a jewel of a book" by the New York Times, noting Tan's "deep empathy for her subject matter" and the "rare fidelity and beauty" of her storytelling.

[38] Tan has received criticism, notably from Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who wrote that Tan's novels "are often products of the American-born writer's own heavily mediated understanding of things Chinese,” and author Frank Chin, who has said that her novels "demonstrate a vested interest in casting Chinese men in the worst possible light".

[43] In February 2025, the Bancroft Library of University of California, Berkeley, announced that it had acquired an archive of Tan's work through a combination of donations and purchases using endowment funds.

Having previously claimed that she would have her possessions shredded upon death to avoid posthumous scrutiny, Tan explained her change-of-heart as accepting posterity.