During her youth she studied at Raffles Girls' School followed by three years in the Netherlands.
[2] Tan also holds a master's degree in English Studies (1500-1660) from the University of Oxford.
She has since received her MFA in creative writing at New York University.
[2] She has published various short stories before, and at the age of 23, she got her first book, Foreign Bodies (1997), to print.
[2][3] Furthermore, she has received awards from the National Arts Council, the National University of Singapore, the New York Times Foundation and the British Broadcasting Corporation.