Back
Empress Orchid cover
2004•336 pages•Published•ENG•User Reviews

Empress Orchid

3.0/ 5
1 ratings

About This Book

It is the final days of the Chinese empire. Trade in opium with Europe is slowly corroding the power of the Ch'ing Dynasty. Orchid, a beautiful seventeen-year-old from an aristocratic but impoverished family, is pushed into the maelstrom when she finds herself unexpectedly chosen to become a lower-ranking concubine of the Emperor. The world inside the Forbidden City is erotically charged and highly ritualised, but beneath its immaculate face lie whispers of murders and ghosts. The thousands of concubines will go to any lengths to bear the Emperor a son and become his Empress. Determined not to be a victim of the jealousies and foul play, Orchid trains herself in the art of pleasuring a man, bribes her way into the royal bed and seduces the monarch. Little does she know that China will collapse around her, and she will be its last Empress. EMPRESS ORCHID is the story of this fascinating, strong-willed woman who for generations has been vilified as a grand seductress and murderess. Anchee Min draws a vivid portrait of a flawed yet utterly compelling woman and, through her life, the world of the Chinese court and the sexual and political lives of the royal concubines. Richly detailed and completely gripping, this is a novel of high drama and lyricism from the acclaimed author of Becoming Madame Mao and Red Azalea.

Track Your Reading

Sign in to save this book, track pages, log finished reads and rereads, and build your Reading Diary.

Sign In

Community Reviews

Reviews

Browse all reviews →
Sign in to review

No reviews yet. Be the first.

LiteratureFictionEmpressesHistoryFiction, historical, generalChina, fiction

The Swinging Light

Book Details

First Published

2004

Pages

336 pages

Rating

3.0 / 5

Ratings

1

Editions

4

Publisher

Hougton Mifflin

Language

ENG

Status

Published

The People Behind The Book

Authors

You May Also Like

Recommended Books

Prentice Hall Literature--World Masterpieces cover

Prentice Hall Literature--World Masterpieces

1991

Burton Beers, Anna Ahkmatova, Dante Alighieri, Yehuda Amichai, Margaret Atwood, Basho, Charles Baudelaire, Giovanni Boccaccio, Heinrich Böll, Jorge Luis Borges, Buson Yosa, Italo Calvino, Albert Camus, Антон Павлович Чехов, Ch'ien T'ao, To Li Chien, Po Chu-i, Colette, Confucius, Julio Cortázar, Rubén Darío, Isak Dinesen, Jean de La Fontaine, Marie de France, Tu Fu, Federico García Lorca, Gabriel García Márquez, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Nikolaĭ Vasilʹevich Gogolʹ, Günter Grass, Bessie Head, Heinrich Heine, Hitomaro Kakinomoto, Όμηρος, Lu Hsun, Victor Hugo, Henrik Ibsen, Kobayashi, Hideo, Franz Kafka, Yoshida Kenko, Omar Khayyam, Komachi Ono, Pär Lagerkvist, Stanisław Lem, Doris Lessing, Primo Levi, Niccolò Machiavelli, Najib Mahfouz, Thomas Mann, Christopher Marlowe, Guy de Maupassant, Czesław Miłosz, John Milton, Gabriela Mistral, Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Narayan, Pablo Neruda, Ōgai Mōri, Ovid, Blaise Pascal, Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, Octavio Paz, Luigi Pirandello, Plato, Pliny, Li Po, Александр Сергеевич Пушкин, Rainer Maria Rilke, Arthur Rimbaud, Manuel Rojas, Pierre de Ronsard, William Shakespeare, Sei Shōnagon, Александр Солженицын, Sophocles, Wole Soyinka, Jonathan Swift, Rabindranath Tagore, Лев Толстой, Toshiyori Minamoto, Chrétien de Troyes, Tsurayuki Ki, Pak, Tu-jin, Lao-Tze, Paul Valéry, François Villon, Nguyen Thi Vinh, Virgil, Andrei Vosnesensky, Derek Walcott, Wang, Wei, William Wordsworth, 川端康成, Yevgeny Yevtushenko