by Amy Tan

Born in Oakland, California, in 1952 to Chinese parents, Amy Tan wrote The Kitchen God's Wife to tell the story of her mother, Daisy Tan. The character of Winnie Louie experiences trials and tribulations in pre-Communist China that mirror those suffered by Daisy, who fled to the United States on the last boat from Shanghai in 1949 before the Communist takeover.

Events in History at the Time the Novel Takes Place

Dynasties and alien invaders. In the novel the character Winnie Louie presents her daughter with a poignant, richly detailed story of a difficult life in her troubled homeland. She recounts in vivid detail the horrors that her people experienced when the Japanese invaded China. In fact, the Japanese were not the first to try to exploit this vast, lush land with its abundant resources; China's history seems to have been...