The Kitchen God's Wife
by Amy Tan
Bestselling story of a Chinese-American daughter and her complex relationship with her immigrant mother – why Chinese mothers criticise.
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“Amy Tan unleashed this western obsession, or interest in, Chinese women’s writing and it’s not the best book in the world, but it’s a classic story of not understanding your parents until it’s nearly too late. There is this woman married to a white American man and she has always thought her parents never loved her. She finds out that in Chinese culture you must never tell your children they are beautiful or praise them because the spirits might be listening and will come and take the child away. So they are always saying you could be better, you could do better because you never know what spirits are listening. In some ways it takes you to a completely alien world and in other ways it’s completely familiar because we all have mothers. The food in it is amazing too.” Read more...
Ellah Allfrey, Literary Scholar
