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The Courtesan

Book Cover
Average Rating
Publisher:
HighBridge
Pub. Date:
2015
Language:
English
Description
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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ISBN:
9781622319619
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Grouping Information

Grouped Work ID3b9592eb-b631-aba4-ef09-91f577c3ed48
Grouping Titlecourtesan
Grouping Authoralexandra curry
Grouping Categorybook
Grouping LanguageEnglish (eng)
Last Grouping Update2023-11-30 04:07:42AM
Last Indexed2023-11-30 04:46:49AM

Solr Fields

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Curry, Alexandra
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Curry, Alexandra
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Online OverDrive Collection
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Online OverDrive Collection
display_description
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.
format_aacpl
eAudiobook
format_category_aacpl
Audio Books
eBook
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isbn
9781622319619
last_indexed
2023-11-30T09:46:49.994Z
lexile_score
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literary_form
Fiction
literary_form_full
Fiction
local_callnumber_aacpl
Online OverDrive
owning_library_aacpl
Anne Arundel County Public Library Online
owning_location_aacpl
Online OverDrive Collection
primary_isbn
9781622319619
publishDate
2015
publisher
HighBridge
recordtype
grouped_work
title_display
The Courtesan
title_full
The Courtesan
title_short
The Courtesan
topic_facet
Fiction
Historical Fiction
Literature

Solr Details Tables

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overdrive:926fa7cf-8047-49ac-b301-f00a938d50911Online OverDrive CollectionOnline OverDriveeAudiobookAudio Books1falsetrueOverDriveAvailable Online

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scoping_details_aacpl

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overdrive:926fa7cf-8047-49ac-b301-f00a938d50911Available OnlineAvailable Onlinefalsetruetruefalsefalsetrue