Amy Tan Knihy

Mozaikou šestnástich príbehov žien, ktoré sa narodili v Číne a odišli do bájnej Ameriky za svojím šťastím. Kniha bola bestsellerom a podkladom pre slávny film.

Dej knihy Mastičkárova dcéra sa odohráva v americko-čínskom prostredí. Román je rozdelený na tri časti. Prvú aj tretiu rozpráva hlavná hrdinka Ruth, žena v strednom veku, ktorá má čínsku matku, ale vyrástla v Amerike, pretože jej matka tam emigrovala. Ruth prežíva svoj pomerne úspešný život, ktorý je však dosť ovplyvnený komplikovaným detstvom bez otca a s matkou, ktorá nevie poriadne po anglicky, je dosť nesamostatná a vo všetkom sa spolieha na dcéru, takže si svoje komplexy menejcennosti a zlosť potom vylieva na jedinej dcére. Ruth však nemá pochybnosti, že matka ju nekonečne miluje, o čom ju, napokon, veľmi často presviedčajú rozličné maličkosti (ako napríklad nespočetné množstvo výstrižkov z časopisov, pretože matka chce pre ňu vyhrať milióny), trpí jej výlevy a stará sa o ňu v starobe. Matka jej dá rukopis v čínštine a nalieha na dcéru, aby si ho prečítala. Keďže Ruth nevie dobre po čínsky, musí si na to najať prekladateľa.

Najnovšie dielo autorky bestselleru Mastičkárova dcéra je rozsiahlym eposom o dvoch neľahkých ženských osudoch a o hľadaní vlastnej identity. Román Údolie zázrakov spája dva kontinenty a opisuje obdobie od pádu poslednej čínskej dynastie po druhú svetovú vojnu, stratený svet starého Šanghaja, fungovanie domov kurtizán aj život prisťahovalcov v meste. Je to príbeh o matke a dcére, o prelínaní kultúry Západu a Východu, ale aj o sile či tvrdošijnosti lásky. Violet Minturnová žije v Šanghaji ako pri vilegovaná dcéra americkej madam najexkluzívnejšieho domu kurtizán. Po páde dynastie Čching ju odlúčia od matky a prinútia ju stať sa pannou kurtizán. Violet, spolovice Číňanka, spolovice Američanka, sa usiluje vydobyť si miesto v spoločnosti a pochopiť, kto vlastne je. Neľahkú životnú cestu si kedysi zvolila aj jej matka, ktorá sa ako šestnásťročná zaľúbila do čínskeho maliara a utiekla za ním do Šanghaja. No milencova rodina mladú Američanku neprijala a synovi pripravila život v súlade s tradíciami. Prísnych príbuzných neobmäkčila ani dievčinina prešibanosť, ani dôvtip, ani malá Violet plod nerovnej lásky. Matka aj dcéra sa odmietajú podrobiť osudu a vytrvalo sa usilujú získať späť to, o čo ich obrali: rešpekt, budúcnosť aj lásku svoj ich blízkych.

Hrdinkami románu jsou amerikanizovaná dcera, devětatřicetiletá Pearl Brandtová a matka, imigrantka první generace Winnie Louieová (v Číně Jing Weili). „Dohlíží“ na ně „tetička“ Helen (v Číně Chu-lan), která zachránila Winnie při náletu na Nanking a po letech v Americe vyhrožuje, že prozradí Pearl pravdu o čínské minulosti Winnie. Matka se s dcerou (a dvěma vnučkami) setkává po dlouhém odloučení v roce 1989 na „víkendu s velkorodinou“ v San Francisku pod záminkou zásnub bratrance a pohřbu pratety. Setkání rozkolísalo křehkou rovnováhu tajemství, která obě ženy skrývají. Roztroušená skleróza Pearl a pohnutá minulost matky ve válkou rozvrácené Číně jsou „rozbalovány“ jako „dárky“ pečlivě skrývané čtvrt století od rozkolu na pohřbu amerického manžela Winnie...

Román americké autorky čínského původu o složitosti vztahů matky a dcery, které jsou poznamenány nevyslovenými tajemstvími a bolavou historií. Poněkud odcizený vztah matky a dcery má šanci získat na vřelosti, pokud obě ženy najdou odvahu se otevřít a svěřit druhé své tajemství. Matka je čínská emigrantka, která přišla do Ameriky za okolností poněkud složitějších, než dosud své dceři tvrdila, a dcera, dospělá a již zcela "poameričtělá", potřebuje matčinu blízkost, protože je vážně nemocná, ale nemá odvahu se svěřit... Autorčino stálé téma - řešení vztahu matky a dcery a zejména líčení života v předválečné Číně a tamního způsobu života, se vrací i v této knize. Kromě složitého a bolavého matčina příběhu poznáváme i velmi exotickou kulturu i tradice, předsudky a pověry, jimiž byla tehdejší čínská společnost svázána, a také nelítostné a krvavé dějiny 20. století, které nebylo snadné přežít. S autorčinou velkou schopností vcítění, sdělení těch nejniternějších pocitů i bolestí a uměním podat své hrdiny opravdu živě, se smyslem pro detail a věrné vylíčení života, se z víceméně (auto?)biografického dokumentu stává jímavý psychologický román.

Stunning reissue of an international bestseller, from the author of The Joy Luck Club' and The Bonesetter's Daughter'.

"THE WISEST AND MOST CAPTIVATING NOVEL TAN HAS WRITTEN."--The Boston Sunday Globe "TRULY MAGICAL . . . UNFORGETTABLE . . . The first-person narrator is Olivia Laguni, and her unrelenting nemesis from childhood on is her half-sister, Kwan Li. . . . It is Kwan's haunting predictions, her implementation of the secret senses, and her linking of the present with the past that cause this novel to shimmer with meaning--and to leave it in the readers mind when the book has long been finished." --The San Diego Tribune "HER MOST POLISHED WORK . . . Tan is a wonderful storyteller, and the story's many strands--Olivia's childhood, her courtship and marriage, Kwan's ghost stories and village tales--propel the work to its climactic but bittersweet end." --USA Today "TAN HAS ONCE MORE PRODUCED A NOVEL WONDERFULLY LIKE A HOLOGRAM: turn it this way and find Chinese-Americans shopping and arguing in San Francisco; turn it that way and the Chinese of Changmian village in 1864 are fleeing into the hills to hide from the rampaging Manchus. . . . THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES doesn't simply return to a world but burrows more deeply into it, following new trails to fresh revelations. --Newsweek

"Before you go out into the world," Ming Miao told her five kittens, "you must know the true story of your ancestors...."And so begins the story of Sagwa of China, a mischievous, pearl white kitten. Sagwa lived in the House of the Foolish Magistrate, a greedy man who made up rules that helped only himself. One day, Sagwa fell into an inkwell and accidentally changed one of the Foolish Magistrate's rules. Little did Sagwa know she would alter the fate—and the appearance—of Chinese cats forever!

Grade 8.

Winnie and Helen have kept each other's worst secrets for more than fifty years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to expose everything. And Winnie angrily determines that she must be the one to tell her daughter, Pearl, about the past—including the terrible truth even Helen does not know. And so begins Winnie's story of her life on a small island outside Shanghai in the 1920s, and other places in China during World War II, and traces the happy and desperate events that led to Winnie's coming to America in 1949.

"In 2016, author Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds flocking to the feeders in her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater--an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired. Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time--from before the pandemic to the days of quarantine--through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, Amy Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world"-- Provided by publisher

“Here is absolute beauty. One of the finest novels I’ve read in years.” —Junot DiazAn astonishingly inventive, wonderfully exuberant novel that takes us from the shimmering dunes of ancient Egypt to the war-torn streets of twenty-first-century Lebanon.In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father’s deathbed. The city is a shell of the Beirut Osama remembers, but he and his friends and family take solace in the things that have always sustained gossip, laughter, and, above all, stories.Osama’s grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his bewitching stories—of his arrival in Lebanon, an orphan of the Turkish wars, and of how he earned the name al-Kharrat , the fibster—are interwoven with classic tales of the Middle East, stunningly reimagined. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the ancient, fabled Fatima; and Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders. Here, too, are contemporary Lebanese whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war—and of survival.Like a true hakawati, Rabih Alameddine has given us an Arabian Nights for this century—a funny, captivating novel that enchants and dazzles from its very first “Listen. Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining. Let me tell you a story.”

An unbearably moving, intensely passionate, deeply personal account of life as seen through the eyes of one of America’s best-loved novelists.‘When 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 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 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’.

“The Bonesetter’s Daughter dramatically chronicles the tortured, devoted relationship between LuLing Young and her daughter Ruth. . . . A strong novel, filled with idiosyncratic, sympathetic characters, haunting images, historical complexity, significant contemporary themes, and suspenseful mystery.” –Los Angeles Times “TAN AT HER BEST . . . Rich and hauntingly forlorn . . . The writing is so exacting and unique in its detail.” –San Francisco Chronicle “For Tan, the true keeper of memory is language, and so the novel is layered with stories that have been written down–by mothers for their daughters, passing along secrets that cannot be said out loud but must not be forgotten.” –The New York Times Book Review “AMY TAN [HAS] DONE IT AGAIN. . . . The Bonesetter’s Daughter tells a compelling tale of family relationships; it layers and stirs themes of secrets, ambiguous meanings, cultural complexity and self-identity; and it resonates with metaphor and symbol.” –The Denver Post

Fourteen short stories about what it's like to grow up in the city―the glamour, the mean streets, and the neighborhood. In these fourteen authentic short stories, young people growing up in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, DC, New York, and elsewhere contend with city a former child-star must resist her mother's dreams of Hollywood to pursue her own interest in archaeology; in a Baltimore courtroom, a boy testifies against a drug dealer who, if freed, will surely want revenge; a block party in Harlem is the setting first for a family argument and then for an act of neighborly kindness....These stories of young people of all backgrounds―from the privileged to the poor, from immigrant to native-born―beat with the pulse of city life. They neither extol nor condemn but frankly reflect the city's real excitements and perils. For urban teens, these are pages out of daily life. For those who live elsewhere, here is a glimpse into a world so often imagined. Among the authors are Judith Ortiz Cofer, Eugenia Collier, Ann Hood, Cherylene Lee, Paul Many, Walter Dean Myers, Michael Rosovsky, Neal Shusterman, Amy Tan, Elennora Tate, and Kurt Vonnegut.

The best new memoir I've read in a decade is Amy Tan's breath-taking high-wire act of memory and imagination . . . [a] classic of the form . . . A must-read for the ages. Mary Karr

San Francisco art patron Bibi Chen has planned a journey of the senses along the famed Burma Road for eleven lucky friends. But after her mysterious death, Bibi watches aghast from her ghostly perch as the travelers veer off her itinerary and embark on a trail paved with cultural gaffes and tribal curses, Buddhist illusions and romantic desires. On Christmas morning, the tourists cruise across a misty lake and disappear.With picaresque characters and mesmerizing imagery, Saving Fish from Drowning gives us a voice as idiosyncratic, sharp, and affectionate as the mothers of The Joy Luck Club. Bibi is the observant eye of human nature–the witness of good intentions and bad outcomes, of desperate souls and those who wish to save them. In the end, Tan takes her readers to that place in their own heart where hope is found.

Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's telling the stories. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives – until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.

Die chinesische Grossmutter erzählt ihren Enkeln die Geschichte von der Mondfrau, die einmal im Jahr erscheint, um den Menschen ihre geheimsten Wünsche zu erfüllen.

Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's telling the stories. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives – until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.

1000 Katzenleben vor unserer Zeit: das tolpatschige Kätzchen Sagwa tapst mit ihren Pfötchen, ohne es zu wollen, ins Tuschfass und anschliessend so geschickt über ein törichtes Dekret, dass sich dessen Sinn total verändert. (ab 6).

Vier Chinese vrouwen in San Francisco vertellen elkaar over hun jeugd in China.

Een vrouw van half-Chinese afkomst vindt haar wortels via haar Chinese halfzusje en een tocht naar China en het dorp van haar vader.