Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses

Bella Adams (University of Sunderland)
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In many ways,

The Hundred Secret Senses

(1995) is a very different novel to those that preceded it, not least because it failed to achieve the critical acclaim and attention of Amy Tan's highly successful

The Joy Luck Club

and

The Kitchen God's Wife

. What also distinguishes Tan's third novel is its focus on a different intercultural relationship between two half sisters, the American-born Olivia Yee and the Chinese-born Kwan Li, along with its representation of a different history and a different reality: mid-nineteenth century China and the “World of Yin” (p. 3). These differences mark something of a departure from the matrilineal narrative, and with this departure comes a realistic and, at times, semi-autobiographical rendering of historical experiences specific to the twentieth…

3039 words

Citation: Adams, Bella. "The Hundred Secret Senses". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 January 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=542, accessed 28 March 2024.]

542 The Hundred Secret Senses 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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