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Big Read Coming to Columbus in 2009 With The Joy Luck Club
With a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Greater Columbus Arts Council will coordinate a communitywide Big Read program for the first time in Columbus during April and May 2009.
The Big Read is a national initiative designed to revitalize the role of literature in American popular culture. Since its inception, the program has served approximately 275 communities across the United States by engaging libraries, literary organizations, colleges and arts organizations to encourage the reading of seminal works of American literature. GCAC and partners chose The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan's 1989 best-seller, as the city’s first Big Read book.
“We really felt like The Joy Luck Club would resonate with Columbus because of its themes of diversity and immigration. Columbus has an incredibly diverse population, and we have many immigrant populations here,” said Bryan W. Knicely, GCAC President. “Plus, we wanted to choose a book from a living author like Tan, so we could invite the author to Columbus.”
Tan is slated to visit Columbus to culminate all of the diverse programming events with a public discussion of her book at The Ohio State University’s Mershon Auditorium on Fri., May 22 and a visit to the Asian Festival on Sat., May 23. More information about the events will be available soon.
In 2006, Dana Gioia, Chairman of the NEA, interviewed Tan at her home in Berkeley, California. An excerpt from their conversation from www.neabigread.org follows:
Dana Gioia: Would you explain the special symbolism of the title, The Joy Luck Club?
Amy Tan: I don't think joy and luck are specific to Chinese culture. Everybody wants joy and luck, and we all have our different notions about from where that luck comes. Many Chinese stores and restaurants have the word 'luck' in there. The idea is that, just by using the word 'luck' in names of things, you can attract more of it. Our beliefs in luck are related to hope. Some people who are without almost any hope in a situation still cling to luck.
DG: This is a great book about the American immigrant experience. Did you think about that theme consciously when writing the book?
AT: If I thought about this at all, it was the immigrant experience according to my mother and father. This influenced the way I took their immigrant story-the things that I rejected, the things that I thought were American. The basic notion of this country is that with self-determination, you can create who you are. That, in turn, allows an amazing freedom to a writer, because freedom is also creativity.
DG: Why is reading important?
AT: In childhood, reading provided a refuge for me, especially during difficult times. It provided me with the idea that I could find an ending that was different from what was happening at the time. Imagination is the closest thing that we have to compassion and empathy. When you read about the life of another person, you are part of their lives for that moment. This is so vital, especially today, when we have so much misunderstanding across cultures and even within our own communities.
DG: What did you read as a child?
AT: I read every fairy tale I could lay my hands on at the public library. It was a wonderful world to escape to.
DG: Do you feel that your early love of fairy tales expressed itself in The Joy Luck Club, or did you look on its content as realistic?
AT: As a minister, my father told us many stories from the Bible that were like fairy tales. Those stories can reflect very strong beliefs that Christians have, but they also have all the qualities that are wonderful about fairy tales. Life is larger than we think it is. Certain events can happen that we don't understand, and we can take it as faith in a particular area, or as superstition, or as a fairytale, or something else. It's wonderful to come to a situation and think that it can be all kinds of possibilities. I look at what's happened to me as a published writer and, sometimes, I think it's a fairytale.
Drawing of Amy Tan courtesy of the National Endowment for the Arts. The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest.
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GCAC appreciates and acknowledges support from: City of Columbus, Franklin County and the Ohio Arts Council
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