The Kitchen God's Wife: A Novel - Softcover

Tan, Amy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143038109 ISBN 13: 9780143038108

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

"Remarkable...mesmerizing...compelling.... An entire world unfolds in Tolstoyan tide of event and detail....Give yourself over to the world Ms. Tan creates for you." —The New York Times Book Review

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. The Kitchen God's Wife is "a beautiful book" (Los Angeles Times) from the bestselling author of novels like The Joy Luck Club and The Backyard Bird Chronicles, and the memoir, Where the Past Begins.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Amy Tan is the author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life, Saving Fish from Drowning, The Valley of Amazement, The Backyard Bird Chronicles, and two children’s books, The Moon Lady and The Chinese Siamese Cat, which was adapted into a PBS television series. Tan was also a coproducer and co-screenwriter of the film version of The Joy Luck Club. Her essays and stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and her work has been translated into thirty-five languages. She lives with her husband in San Francisco and New York.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

 

I - THE SHOP OF THE GODS

Chapter 2 - GRAND AUNTIE DU’S FUNERAL

Chapter 3 - WHEN FISH ARE THREE DAYS OLD

Chapter 4 - LONG, LONG DISTANCE

Chapter 5 - TEN THOUSAND THINGS

Chapter 6 - PEANUT’S FORTUNE

Chapter 7 - DOWRY COUNTING

Chapter 8 - TOO MUCH YIN

Chapter 9 - BEST TIME OF YEAR

Chapter 10 - LOYANG LUCK

Chapter 11 - FOUR SPLITS, FIVE CRACKS

Chapter 12 - TAONAN MONEY

Chapter 13 - HEAVEN’S BREATH

Chapter 14 - BAD EYE

Chapter 15 - A FLEA ON A TIGER’S HEAD

Chapter 16 - THE GREAT WORLD

Chapter 17 - THE FOUR GATES

Chapter 18 - AMERICAN DANCE

Chapter 19 - WEAK AND STRONG

Chapter 20 - FOUR DAUGHTERS ON THE TABLE

Chapter 21 - LITTLE YU’S MOTHER

Chapter 22 - ONE SEASON LEFT

Chapter 23 - SINCERELY YOURS TRULY

Chapter 24 - FAVOR

Chapter 25 - BAO-BAO’S WEDDING

Chapter 26 - SORROWFREE

 

FOR THE BEST IN PAPERBACKS, LOOK FOR THE

Praise for The Kitchen God’s Wife

“The book takes flight ... As the story all but tells itself—so seamlessly it feels as if Tan’s ancestors are speaking through her—it bestows on us a host of luminous surprises.... Almost every page of the old wife’s tale is lit up with the magic of a world in which birds can sound like women crying and sweaters are knit in the memory of spider webs. Yet all the storybook marvels are grounded in a survivor’s vinegar wit. And in front of the watercolor backdrops are horrors pitiless enough to mount a powerful indictment against a world in which women were taught that love means always having to say you’re sorry.... Tan has transcended herself again.”

—Time

 

“An absorbing narrative of Winnie Louie’s life, which she tells—or offers—as a gift to her daughter Pearl. Much happens in the telling: long-held secrets are revealed, and a family’s myths are transferred ceremoniously on to the next generation.... Tan returns to the richly textured world of California’s immigrant Chinese ... with its brilliant tapestry of characters and conflicts here and overseas.... She is a wonderful writer with a rare power to touch the heart.”

—Newsweek

 

“Riveting ... The book rings with distinctive voices, and it’s laden with those details that make readers feel they’ve gained a toehold on another world.”

—USA Today

 

“A beautiful book ... What fascinates in The Kitchen God’s Wife is not only the insistent storytelling but the details of Chinese life and tradition; not only how people lived but how their sensibility shines through, most notably in their speech. For Amy Tan has command of a language in which event and concrete perception jump into palpable metaphor and images from the daily world act like spiritual agents.”

—Los Angeles Times Book Review

 

“Amy Tan is foremost a storyteller.... Almost every page is a tour through the senses, making the smells, sounds, sights, tastes and textures of pre-Communist China as real and alive as squirming eels and screaming sidewalk vendors.... An often breathtaking story from an important literary talent.”

—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

“Remarkable ... An absolutely riveting tale of a life that has indeed flowed inexorably forward like a river... This woman with ‘pretty skin, foolish heart, strong will, scared bones,’ speaks with a voice that is unforgettable. She is an incredibly rich character, whose flaws are as understandable as her strengths.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

 

“The Kitchen God’s Wife above all tells the story of how Winnie was once Weiwei, the most richly imagined character Ms. Tan has yet created.... Winnie lays her life out in gorgeous, raw detail, a succession of characters—many of whom grow in depth and complexity as the book progresses.”

—The Wall Street Journal

 

“An entire world unfolds in a Tolstoyan tide of event and detail.... Give yourself over to the world Ms. Tan creates for you.”

—The New York Times Book Review

 

“Gripping, sweeping ... Amy Tan stitches a beautiful literary tapestry, rich and dense with color, texture, pattern.... This is incantatory prose, a breathless roller coaster ride through a brilliant desperate world made magic by superstition and old wives’ tales and the pure drama of hard times. ... Amy Tan is one of our master storytellers.”

—The Miami Herald

 

“Mesmerizing ... compelling ... The Kitchen God’s Wife is a single, bold blossom that represents Tan’s own flowering as a novelist.... Tan paints not only a vivid portrait of one woman’s amazing life but also a memorable, detailed picture of the repressive society that dictated that life.... The narrative is so powerful, so true, that one believes wholeheartedly in Winnie, that her story was somehow fated to be told. How fortunate readers are that Amy Tan has told it so well.”

—Orlando Sentinel

 

“Riveting story ... The Kitchen God’s Wife hooks you early, drawing you into a life, a culture and a period in history that exert a mesmerizing appeal. ... Tan gives us an intimate and memorable portrait.”

—The Seattle Times

 

“One extraordinary aspect (among many) of Amy Tan’s second novel is its narrative drive.... It is a story of sweeping scope ... told with the kind of convincing detail that gives fiction the ring of truth.... Tan’s greatest accomplishment here is the character of Winnie herself, who is both innocent and sly, generous and selfish, appealing and annoying—woman not unlike Emma Bovary.... Winnie makes The Kitchen God’s Wife the kind of novel that can be read and reread with enormous pleasure.”

—Chicago Tribune

 

“The Kitchen God’s Wife, like a Chinese proverb, is paradoxical and wise. ... The energy and intelligence of Tan’s prose will also leave a reader looking forward to her future efforts.”

—The Milwaukee Journal

PENGUIN BOOKS THE KITCHEN GOD’S WIFE

Amy Tan is the author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, Saving Fish from Drowning, and two children’s books, The Moon Lady and Sagwa, which was adapted as a PBS production, for which she served as a creative consultant and writer. Tan was also a coproducer and coscreen-writer of the film version of The Joy Luck Club, and her essays and stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. She is the literary editor for WEST, the weekly magazine produced by the Los Angeles Times. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She lives with her husband in New York and San Francisco.

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Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0143038109
• ISBN 13: 9780143038108
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 416
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland