The Backyard Bird Chronicles

Amy Tan is an award-winning American author who is most well known for her works centering the experiences of Chinese American women. Tan was born in Oakland, California, in 1952. Her parents were Chinese immigrants who came to the United States during the Chinese Civil War. Tan’s father was influential to her love of language. When Tan was 16, her father and older brother both developed brain tumors and died. She was left in the care of her mother, Daisy, with whom she had a rocky relationship. Daisy was violent and difficult. When Tan decided to drop out of the Bible college her mother had selected for her, the two women stopped speaking for half a year. In The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Tan references how important nature was as a refuge from the chaos she experienced at home.

Tan carved her own path, working odd jobs to support herself through school. She holds a bachelor’s in both English and linguistics and a master’s in linguistics. Tan took doctoral courses at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Berkeley. After college, she was a freelance business writer and language development specialist. In 1985, she attended a fiction workshop with a community group of writers.