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Words of Wisdom

Amy Tan: “Power is holding someone else’s fear in your hand…”

“You see what power is – holding someone else’s fear in your hand and showing it to them.” -Amy Tan, from her book The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991)
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Amy Tan (b. 1952) is a Chinese-American author best known for her bestselling novel The Joy Luck Club (1989). The above quote comes from her second novel The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), which, like Joy Luck Club, explores one of Tan’s signature themes: mother-daughter relationships in immigrant families. In total, Tan has published six novels, two children’s books, and five non-fiction works.


“You see what power is – holding someone else’s fear in your hand and showing it to them.”

-Amy Tan, from her book The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991)

Photo credit: “Amy Tan” by Robert Foothorap – http://www.arts.gov/about/Nearts/17-2007vol3/p11-tan.html. Via Wikipedia.

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