Author: Denise Chong
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780140255140
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
"Carefully balancing cool observation and compassion, Chong writes extraordinary history and gives voice to the Chinese immigrant experience."--ALA Booklist.
The Concubine's Children
Author: Denise Chong
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780140255140
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
"Carefully balancing cool observation and compassion, Chong writes extraordinary history and gives voice to the Chinese immigrant experience."--ALA Booklist.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780140255140
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
"Carefully balancing cool observation and compassion, Chong writes extraordinary history and gives voice to the Chinese immigrant experience."--ALA Booklist.
The Concubine's Child
Author: Carol Jones
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 178669980X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
An evocative, multi-generational tale of a family haunted by the death of a young concubine. For fans of Dinah Jefferies and Amy Tan. In 1930s Malaya a sixteen-year-old girl, dreaming of marriage to her sweetheart, is sold as a concubine to a rich old man desperate for an heir. Trapped, and bullied by his spiteful wife, Yu Lan plans to escape with her baby son, despite knowing that they will pursue her to the ends of the earth. Four generations later, her great-grandson, Nick, will return to Malaysia, looking for the truth behind the facade of a house cursed by the unhappy past. Nothing can prepare him for what he will find. This exquisitely rich novel brings to life a vanished world – a world of abandoned ghost houses, inquisitive monkeys, smoky temples and a panoply of gods and demons. A world where a poor girl can be sold to fulfil a rich man's dream. But though he can buy her body, he can never capture her soul, nor quench her spirit. WHAT READERS ARE SAYING: 'Compelling, atmospheric and emotional' 'Well-written, compelling... A tale of duty, treachery, misery and superstition' 'Wonderfully drawn characters, searing emotion, powerful intensity and nail-biting drama'.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 178669980X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
An evocative, multi-generational tale of a family haunted by the death of a young concubine. For fans of Dinah Jefferies and Amy Tan. In 1930s Malaya a sixteen-year-old girl, dreaming of marriage to her sweetheart, is sold as a concubine to a rich old man desperate for an heir. Trapped, and bullied by his spiteful wife, Yu Lan plans to escape with her baby son, despite knowing that they will pursue her to the ends of the earth. Four generations later, her great-grandson, Nick, will return to Malaysia, looking for the truth behind the facade of a house cursed by the unhappy past. Nothing can prepare him for what he will find. This exquisitely rich novel brings to life a vanished world – a world of abandoned ghost houses, inquisitive monkeys, smoky temples and a panoply of gods and demons. A world where a poor girl can be sold to fulfil a rich man's dream. But though he can buy her body, he can never capture her soul, nor quench her spirit. WHAT READERS ARE SAYING: 'Compelling, atmospheric and emotional' 'Well-written, compelling... A tale of duty, treachery, misery and superstition' 'Wonderfully drawn characters, searing emotion, powerful intensity and nail-biting drama'.
The Concubine's Children
Author: Denise Chong
Publisher: Penguin Canada
ISBN: 0143193309
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 379
Book Description
The Concubine’s Children is the story of a family cleaved in two for the sake of a father’s dream. There’s Chan Sam, who left an "at home" wife in China to earn a living in "Gold Mountain"—North America. There’s May-ying, the wilful, seventeen-year-old concubine he bought, sight unseen, who labored in tea houses of west coast Chinatowns to support the family he would have in Canada, and the one he had in China. It was the concubine’s third daughter, the author’s mother, who unlocked the past for her daughter, whose curiosity about some old photographs ultimately reunited a family divided for most of the last century.
Publisher: Penguin Canada
ISBN: 0143193309
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 379
Book Description
The Concubine’s Children is the story of a family cleaved in two for the sake of a father’s dream. There’s Chan Sam, who left an "at home" wife in China to earn a living in "Gold Mountain"—North America. There’s May-ying, the wilful, seventeen-year-old concubine he bought, sight unseen, who labored in tea houses of west coast Chinatowns to support the family he would have in Canada, and the one he had in China. It was the concubine’s third daughter, the author’s mother, who unlocked the past for her daughter, whose curiosity about some old photographs ultimately reunited a family divided for most of the last century.
The Concubine's Daughter
Author: Pai Kit Fai
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1429940603
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 500
Book Description
An epic, heart-wrenching story of a mother and daughter's journey to their destiny. Lotus Feet. He would give his daughter the dainty feet of a courtesan. This would enhance her beauty and her price, making her future shine like a new coin. He smiled to himself, pouring fresh tea. And it would stop her from running away... When the young concubine of an old farmer in rural China gives birth to a daughter called Li-Xia, or "Beautiful One," the child seems destined to become a concubine herself. Li refuses to submit to her fate, outwitting her father's orders to bind her feet and escaping the silk farm with an English sea captain. Li takes her first steps toward fulfilling her mother's dreams of becoming a scholar—but her final triumph must be left to her daughter, Su Sing, "Little Star," in a journey that will take her from remote mountain refuges to the perils of Hong Kong on the eve of World War II.
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1429940603
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 500
Book Description
An epic, heart-wrenching story of a mother and daughter's journey to their destiny. Lotus Feet. He would give his daughter the dainty feet of a courtesan. This would enhance her beauty and her price, making her future shine like a new coin. He smiled to himself, pouring fresh tea. And it would stop her from running away... When the young concubine of an old farmer in rural China gives birth to a daughter called Li-Xia, or "Beautiful One," the child seems destined to become a concubine herself. Li refuses to submit to her fate, outwitting her father's orders to bind her feet and escaping the silk farm with an English sea captain. Li takes her first steps toward fulfilling her mother's dreams of becoming a scholar—but her final triumph must be left to her daughter, Su Sing, "Little Star," in a journey that will take her from remote mountain refuges to the perils of Hong Kong on the eve of World War II.
The Concubine
Author: Elechi Amadi
Publisher: Heinemann
ISBN: 9780435905569
Category : African fiction (English)
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Set in a remote village in Eastern Nigeria, an area yet to be affected by European values and where society is orderly and predictable, the story concerns a woman "of great beauty and dignity" who inadvertently brings suffering and death to all her lovers. The novel portrays a society still ruled by traditional gods, offering a glimpse into the human relationships that such a society creates.
Publisher: Heinemann
ISBN: 9780435905569
Category : African fiction (English)
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Set in a remote village in Eastern Nigeria, an area yet to be affected by European values and where society is orderly and predictable, the story concerns a woman "of great beauty and dignity" who inadvertently brings suffering and death to all her lovers. The novel portrays a society still ruled by traditional gods, offering a glimpse into the human relationships that such a society creates.
The Concubine, the Princess, and the Teacher
Author: Douglas Scott Brookes
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292783353
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Book Description
In the Western imagination, the Middle Eastern harem was a place of sex, debauchery, slavery, miscegenation, power, riches, and sheer abandon. But for the women and children who actually inhabited this realm of the imperial palace, the reality was vastly different. In this collection of translated memoirs, three women who lived in the Ottoman imperial harem in Istanbul between 1876 and 1924 offer a fascinating glimpse "behind the veil" into the lives of Muslim palace women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The memoirists are Filizten, concubine to Sultan Murad V; Princess Ayse, daughter of Sultan Abdulhamid II; and Safiye, a schoolteacher who instructed the grandchildren and harem ladies of Sultan Mehmed V. Their recollections of the Ottoman harem reveal the rigid protocol and hierarchy that governed the lives of the imperial family and concubines, as well as the hundreds of slave women and black eunuchs in service to them. The memoirists show that, far from being a place of debauchery, the harem was a family home in which polite and refined behavior prevailed. Douglas Brookes explains the social structure of the nineteenth-century Ottoman palace harem in his introduction. These three memoirs, written across a half century and by women of differing social classes, offer a fuller and richer portrait of the Ottoman imperial harem than has ever before been available in English.
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292783353
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Book Description
In the Western imagination, the Middle Eastern harem was a place of sex, debauchery, slavery, miscegenation, power, riches, and sheer abandon. But for the women and children who actually inhabited this realm of the imperial palace, the reality was vastly different. In this collection of translated memoirs, three women who lived in the Ottoman imperial harem in Istanbul between 1876 and 1924 offer a fascinating glimpse "behind the veil" into the lives of Muslim palace women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The memoirists are Filizten, concubine to Sultan Murad V; Princess Ayse, daughter of Sultan Abdulhamid II; and Safiye, a schoolteacher who instructed the grandchildren and harem ladies of Sultan Mehmed V. Their recollections of the Ottoman harem reveal the rigid protocol and hierarchy that governed the lives of the imperial family and concubines, as well as the hundreds of slave women and black eunuchs in service to them. The memoirists show that, far from being a place of debauchery, the harem was a family home in which polite and refined behavior prevailed. Douglas Brookes explains the social structure of the nineteenth-century Ottoman palace harem in his introduction. These three memoirs, written across a half century and by women of differing social classes, offer a fuller and richer portrait of the Ottoman imperial harem than has ever before been available in English.
Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society
Author: Rubie S. Watson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520071247
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Book Description
Until now our understanding of marriage in China has been based primarily on observations made during the twentieth century. The research of ten eminent scholars presented here provides a new vision of marriage in Chinese history, exploring the complex interplay between marriage and the social, political, economic, and gender inequalities that have so characterized Chinese society.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520071247
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Book Description
Until now our understanding of marriage in China has been based primarily on observations made during the twentieth century. The research of ten eminent scholars presented here provides a new vision of marriage in Chinese history, exploring the complex interplay between marriage and the social, political, economic, and gender inequalities that have so characterized Chinese society.
Red Lotus
Author: Pai Kit Fai
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0748116656
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 427
Book Description
Yip Mann, an elderly spice farmer, should have known better than to purchase a fifteen-year-old cherry-girl as his concubine, especially one beautiful enough to be seen as Ch'ien Gum - comparable to a thousand pieces of gold. But surely he deserves such a plaything to give him the last of his sons. To Yip Mann's dismay, the wilful concubine dies bearing him a worthless girl-child. After her death he must make use of the girl as best he can: by binding her feet in the forbidden practice of the Golden Lotus, he can sell her for a higher price. But the daughter he names Li-Xia - Beautiful One - has the fighting spirit of her rebellious mother, escaping the crippling bandages: she knows her feet will be her freedom. And when they lead her into the path of a mysterious 'foreign devil', Li-Xia takes the first steps on a new and perilous journey . . .
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0748116656
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 427
Book Description
Yip Mann, an elderly spice farmer, should have known better than to purchase a fifteen-year-old cherry-girl as his concubine, especially one beautiful enough to be seen as Ch'ien Gum - comparable to a thousand pieces of gold. But surely he deserves such a plaything to give him the last of his sons. To Yip Mann's dismay, the wilful concubine dies bearing him a worthless girl-child. After her death he must make use of the girl as best he can: by binding her feet in the forbidden practice of the Golden Lotus, he can sell her for a higher price. But the daughter he names Li-Xia - Beautiful One - has the fighting spirit of her rebellious mother, escaping the crippling bandages: she knows her feet will be her freedom. And when they lead her into the path of a mysterious 'foreign devil', Li-Xia takes the first steps on a new and perilous journey . . .
Wild Swans
Author: Jung Chang
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439106495
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 592
Book Description
The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author. An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439106495
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 592
Book Description
The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author. An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.
The Inner Quarters
Author: Patricia Buckley Ebrey
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520081587
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
"Opening up questions about women's lives, about gender, about why we read history at all and how we write it, Patricia Buckley Ebrey has made The Inner Quarters a place we need to enter."—from the Foreword
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520081587
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
"Opening up questions about women's lives, about gender, about why we read history at all and how we write it, Patricia Buckley Ebrey has made The Inner Quarters a place we need to enter."—from the Foreword