Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Courtesan

The Courtesan

Curry, Alexandra
Zeller, Emily Woo

Audio Book

RomanceHistorical FictionLiterary Fiction

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1665152524
ISBN13: 9781665152525
Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Published: Sep 8 2015
Language: English
An astonishing debut novel inspired by the life of the legendary Qing dynasty courtesan, Sai Jinhua. The year is 1881, the era of Chinas humiliation at the hands of imperialist Europe. Seven-year-old Jinhua is left alone and unprotected, her life transformed after her mandarin fathers summary execution for the crime of speaking the truth. As an orphan, she endures the brutal logic of a brothel-keeper, who puts her to work as a so-called money tree, and she survives the worst of human nature with the friendship and wisdom of the crippled brothel maid. When an elegant but troubled scholar takes Jinhua as his concubine, she leaves both the trauma of brothel life and the comfort of friendship behind and encounters for the first time the tantalizing and elusive notion of Great Love. She travels with her emissary husband to Europe and discovers there the mesmerizing strangeness, irresistible sensualities, and exotic possibilities of fin de si egravec le Vienna, while struggling against the constraints of tradition and her husbands wishes. Sai Jinhua is an altered woman when she returns to a changed and changing China, where a terrible clash of East and West is brewing, and where her western sympathies will ultimately threaten not only her own survival but the survival of those who are most dear to her. The Courtesan is a timeless tale of friendship and sacrifice, temptation and redemption; the story of a woman's journey to discern what is real and abiding, and a book that shines a small light on the large history of China's relations with the West.

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