Hostage To Fortune

With her own life in turmoil, Amy Tan was invited by friends in 2000 to accompany them to Burma. "Why not?" she thought. "It's a beautiful country. Great art, great culture. But then I started reading about the military junta, the human rights problems, Aung San Suu Kyi, the boycott. I could cancel the trip, but what good would that do? I could go, but would that do any good either? That led to the question of how any of us can make a difference. And how do we decide?"

That led to Saving Fish from Drowning, the...