The Joy Luck Club: A Big Read Documentary
Series: The Big Read
From: National Endowment for the Arts
Length: 00:28:55
Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club is itself a joyful study in luck. An intricately patterned novel whose author thought she was writing a short-story collection, it is also a mother-daughter saga by a writer whose own mother wanted her to be anything but a writer.
Published in 1989 by an unknown first-time writer, The Joy Luck Clubbecame a reviewers' darling and then an international best seller. The novel tells the story of new waves of immigrants who are changing and enriching America.
The program also features James McBride, Carolyn See, and John Kuo Wei Tchen, among others.
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Piece Description
Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club is itself a joyful study in luck. An intricately patterned novel whose author thought she was writing a short-story collection, it is also a mother-daughter saga by a writer whose own mother wanted her to be anything but a writer.
Published in 1989 by an unknown first-time writer, The Joy Luck Clubbecame a reviewers' darling and then an international best seller. The novel tells the story of new waves of immigrants who are changing and enriching America.
The program also features James McBride, Carolyn See, and John Kuo Wei Tchen, among others.
Transcript
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club
May 2009
Jo Reed Welcome to The Big Read, a program created by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The largest reading program in American history, the Big Read is designed to unite communities through the transformative joys of literature. Here’s your host, poet and former chair of the NEA, Dana Gioia.
Dana Gioia Today we’ll discuss Amy Tan’s groundbreaking novel of Asian- American immigrant experience and family life, The Joy Luck Club.
Ming-Na [Reads from The Joy Luck Club, Chapter 1]
The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look!—it is too beautiful to eat.
Then the woman and the swan sa...
Read the full transcript
Musical Works
| Title | Artist | Album | Label | Year | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instrumental Chinese music | Music from China | Traditional Chinese Music . | 00:00 | ||
| The Lost Lamb | Abigail Washburn | Songs of the Traveling Daughter . | Nettwerk | 00:00 | |
| Song of the Traveling Daughter | Abigail Washburn | Songs of the Traveling Daughter . | Nettwerk | 00:00 |
Additional Credits
Special thanks to Philip Brunelle, Susan Cheng, JT Griffith, Erika Koss, Kate Kaiser and Ted Libbey.
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