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. She published her first story in 1986.

Tan did not begin writing her first novel until she was 33. That book, The Joy Luck Club (1989), made her a household name. The novel follows the stories of four mother-daughter pairs, investigating how culture and generational differences impact their relationships. Tan did not believe the novel would do well, but it became a bestseller and was a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. The book was also adapted into a film nominated for BAFTA and Writers Guild of America awards. Her second novel, The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), is a work of historical fiction that centers Daisy’s story. This novel and Tan’s other works were bestsellers. 

Tan is a prolific writer who has written fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books. The author has received numerous awards, including the National Humanities Medal, the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, and the Commonwealth Award of Distinguished Service. She is on the board of American Bird Conservancy.

Tan’s professional life is marked by a profound sense of curiosity, replicated once more in The Backyard Bird Chronicles. In 2008, she wrote the libretto for an opera based on one of her novels, performed by the San Francisco Opera. She was also a backup singer and tambourine player for the Rock Bottom Remainders, a garage band of writers focused on raising money for literacy programs. Tan’s openness to new experiences led her to take nature journaling classes with John Muir Laws in 2016. Throughout the pandemic, Tan worked on the craft, detailing her observations of the birds in her backyard. Her editor encouraged her to turn her sketches into a book.