Once again, though she does not embrace the label of “master,” here was another instance of the external world deeming it so. Soon after she finished filming the documentary, Tan was approached by MasterClass, a site which offers video courses taught by experts across a wide range of topics, including writing. “It was that commonality and our ability to talk about that felt important.” His was an actual physical pain, and he had to be resilient,” Tan says. Redford passed away in late 2020 from cancer-the documentary about Tan was his last. She recalls a shift taking place when she and Redford spoke about their lives together, especially their shared experiences of pain. “I can think of a lot of people who I consider American masters, but I just have not ever thought of myself in those ways.” Redford asked again, then again, until Tan agreed. Tan remembers rebuffing director Jamie Redford when he first came to her to pitch the documentary, which was released this month under the PBS series American Masters: “What I’m not is an American master,” she told him. Understanding the History of Asian Women in the US.25 Books by Asian and Asian American Authors. Her desire to create art away from all our perceptions, expectations, and obligations of what her work represents-of what “Amy Tan” represents-was a reminder of the burdens of such success, especially for those whose rise to fame can lead to a flattening of their work and public persona, for better or for worse. She went on to have an active and celebrated writing career, publishing five more novels, two books of nonfiction, as well as children’s books.īut I was also struck by the beauty of her bird drawings. Her first book, The Joy Luck Club, was hugely successful, remaining on the New York Times bestseller list for seven months and later adapted into the first big Hollywood film with a majority Asian American cast. Because there are few living writers so prolific, who loom so large in the public imagination-especially the imagination of Asian American writers like myself-as Amy Tan. She flips through a drawing pad of half-done sketches and meticulously detailed illustrations, and we hear her say via voiceover, “If I could simply do what I wanted to do all day for a month, all I would do is look at birds and draw anyone expecting me to produce anything…I realized that the freedom to do what I enjoy had to come with no expectations-and that I had to do it only for myself.” There is a scene toward the end of the PBS documentary Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir where the author shows the viewer a series of bird portraits that she drew herself.
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