 First edition | |
| Author | Amy Tan |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam's Sons |
Publication date | 2005 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 474 pp |
| ISBN | 0-399-15301-2 |
Saving Fish From Drowning is a 2005 novel written by Amy Tan. It is her fifth work. The book is about 12 American tourists who travel to China and Burma. [1]
The novel received an honorable mention from the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature. [2]
Tan says in her "Note to the Reader" that she drew inspiration for her work from a collection of "automatic writing... messages from the unseen world". However, in an interview, she recants this explanation and claims that she actually made up the story of Bibi Chen, the protagonist whose story was supposedly passed along through automatic writing. [3]
The story concerns a group of American tourists travelling the Burma Road from China to Myanmar, and the comic confusions that occur when they are kidnapped by a group of Karen people who believe one of the American teenagers to be a prophesied savior. The Americans, for their part, are not even aware that they are being kidnapped. [4]
The story is told through the omniscient first person narrative of Bibi Chen, the tour leader who unexpectedly dies before the trip takes place and who continues to watch over her friends as they journey towards their fate.
The novel explores the hidden strengths of the tourists, set in the uneasy political situation in Burma.
Amy Ruth Tan is an American author of Chinese heritage, best known for the novel The Joy Luck Club (1989), which was adapted into a 1993 film. She is also known for other novels, short story collections, children's books, and a memoir.
Joan Chen is a Chinese-American actress and film director. In China, she performed in the 1979 film Little Flower and came to the attention of American audiences for her performance in the 1987 film The Last Emperor. She is also known for her roles in Twin Peaks, Red Rose White Rose, Saving Face, and The Home Song Stories, and for directing the feature film Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl.
The Bonesetter's Daughter, published in 2001, is Amy Tan's fourth novel. Like much of Tan's work, this book deals with the relationship between an American-born Chinese woman and her immigrant mother.
The Joy Luck Club is a 1989 novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese immigrant families in San Francisco who start a club known as The Joy Luck Club, playing the Chinese game of mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. The book is structured similarly to a mahjong game, with four parts divided into four sections to create sixteen chapters. The three mothers and four daughters share stories about their lives in the form of short vignettes. Each part is preceded by a parable relating to the themes within that section.
Noble House is a novel by James Clavell, published in 1981 and set in Hong Kong in 1963. It is the fourth book published in Clavell's Asian Saga and is chronologically the fifth book in the series. The "Noble House" in the title is the nickname of Struan's, the trading company first introduced in Clavell's Tai-Pan.
Colonel Sun is a novel by Kingsley Amis published by Jonathan Cape on 28 March 1968 under the pseudonym "Robert Markham". Colonel Sun is the first James Bond continuation novel published after Ian Fleming's 1964 death. Before writing the novel, Amis wrote two other Bond related works, the literary study The James Bond Dossier and the humorous The Book of Bond. Colonel Sun centres on the fictional British Secret Service operative James Bond and his mission to track down the kidnappers of M, his superior at the Secret Service. During the mission he discovers a communist Chinese plot to cause an international incident. Bond, assisted by a Greek spy working for the Russians, finds M on a small Aegean island, rescues him and kills the two main plotters: Colonel Sun Liang-tan and a former Nazi commander, Von Richter.
I Not Stupid is a 2002 Singaporean comedy film about the lives, struggles and adventures of three Primary 6 pupils who are placed in the academically inferior EM3 stream. Written and directed by Jack Neo, and produced by Mediacorp Raintree Pictures, the film stars Huang Po Ju, Shawn Lee, Joshua Ang, Xiang Yun, Jack Neo, Richard Low and Selena Tan.
Larissa Lai is an American-born Canadian novelist and literary critic. She is a recipient of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and Lambda Literary Foundation's 2020 Jim Duggins, PhD Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize.
The literature of Singapore comprises a collection of literary works by Singaporeans. It is written chiefly in the country's four official languages: English, Malay, Standard Mandarin and Tamil.
Khin Myo Chit was a Burmese author and journalist, whose career spanned over four decades. She began her career writing short stories in Burmese for Dagon Magazine in 1934. She worked on the editorial staff of The Burma Journal during anti-colonial movements. After the war, Khin Myo Chit wrote for The Oway, a Burmese newspaper.
Frank Chin is an American author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre.
Alice Wu is an American film director and screenwriter, known for her films Saving Face (2004) and The Half of It (2020).
Saving Face is a 2004 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Alice Wu, in her feature-length debut. The film focuses on Wilhelmina, a young Chinese American surgeon; her unwed, pregnant mother; and her dancer girlfriend. It was the first Hollywood movie that centered on Chinese Americans since The Joy Luck Club (1993).
The Speaker of Mandarin is a detective novel by British crime writer Ruth Rendell, first published in 1983. It is the 12th novel in her popular Inspector Wexford series. The plot follows the popular Kingsmarkham policeman as he returns from a holiday to China and investigates the death of another tourist.
The Joy Luck Club is a 1993 American drama film about the relationships between Chinese-American women and their Chinese immigrant mothers. It was directed by Wayne Wang and stars Tsai Chin, Kieu Chinh, Lisa Lu, France Nuyen, Rosalind Chao, Lauren Tom, Tamlyn Tomita, and Ming-Na Wen. The film is based on the 1989 novel of the same name by Amy Tan, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ronald Bass. The film was produced by Bass, Tan, Wang, and Patrick Markey, while Oliver Stone served as an executive producer. Four older women, all Chinese immigrants living in San Francisco, meet regularly to play mahjong, eat, and tell stories. Each of these women has an adult Chinese-American daughter. The film reveals the hidden pasts of the older women and their daughters, and how their lives are shaped by the clash of Chinese and American cultures as they strive to understand their family bonds and one another.
The Kitchen God's Wife is the second novel by Chinese-American author, Amy Tan. First published in 1991, it deals extensively with Chinese-American female identity and draws on the story of her mother's life.
The Hundred Secret Senses is a bestselling 1995 novel by Chinese-American writer Amy Tan. It was published by Putnam, and was shortlisted for the 1996 Orange Prize for Fiction. While the story is fictional, it is based on the experiences of Tan and on stories told by her mother.
Fan Wu is a bilingual Chinese-American novelist and short story writer. She often translates her own work between English and Chinese. She has expressed her dilemma in choosing which language to use.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is the sixth novel by Richard Flanagan, and was the winner of the 2014 Booker Prize.
"Fish Cheeks" is a 1987 one-page narrative essay by Chinese-American author Amy Tan and her first published essay. The work was first published in Seventeen and covers a Christmas Eve dinner when Tan was 14 years old. It was subsequently published as a part of The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings.
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