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Amy Tan is an American author of Chinese descent, an identify that bleeds into her semi-autobiographical writing, and which often explores intergenerational familial relationships and the Chinese-American experience. She is best known for her 1989 debut, The Joy Luck Club, a novel that sold nearly 6 million copies in the United States alone, staying on the New York Times bestseller list for 77 weeks, and was subsequently turned into a 1993 film by Wayne Wang. The film set a precedent as the first Hollywood film with an all-Asian cast—which didn't happen again until 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians. Her memoir, Where the Past Begins, is now out in paperback. It was a project she came to reluctantly, she told the New York Times. “My reluctance is always casting something out there that will be in the public and will be subject to public interpretation,” Tan said. “It’s like taking the mask off, taking your clothes off, and having people say, oh my God. It’s nonfiction, and people can make fun of the way you think or say, oh that was trivial.”