"A fascinating novel, similar to Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha . . . A revisionist portrait of a beautiful and strong-willed woman" ( Houston Chronicle ).A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the YearFrom Anchee Min, a master of the historical novel, Empress Orchid sweeps readers into the heart of the Forbidden City to tell the fascinating story ...

"Admirers of Empress Orchid will be interested in this sequel. Others may find the introduction to relatively modern Chinese history a revelation" ( Rocky Mountain News).During the tumultuous end of the nineteenth century in China, the only constant was the power wielded by one person: the resilient, ever-resourceful Tzu Hsi, Lady Yehonala—or Empress Orchid—as readers came to know her in Anchee Min's critically acclaimed novel covering the first p...

Two girls come of age during the horrors of China's Cultural Revolution in this novel by the national bestselling author of Empress Orchid.The young and beautiful Wild Ginger is only in elementary school, but has already survived hell through her sheer iron will. Singled out by the Red Guards for her "foreign-colored eyes," she has seen her deceased father branded a traitor and her mother commit suicide under the oppressive weight of persecution. But the y...

From the national bestselling author of Red Azalea: "Extraordinary . . . Min lets [Madame Mao] be seen as never before. Bottom line: riveting" ( People).In a sweeping, erotically charged story, Anchee Min creates a finely nuanced portrait of one of the most fascinating, and vilified, women of the twentieth century.Madame Mao is almost universally known as the "white-boned demon"—ambitious, vindictive, and cruel—whose bid to succeed her hus...

A revelatory and disturbing portrait of China, this is Anchee Min’s celebrated memoir of growing up in the last years of Mao’s China. As a child, Min was asked to publicly humiliate a teacher; at seventeen, she was sent to work at a labor collective. Forbidden to speak, dress, read, write, or love as she pleased, she found a lifeline in a secret love affair with another woman. Miraculously selected for the film version of one of Madame Mao’s political operas, Min’s life changed overnight. ...

In 1994, Anchee Min made her literary debut with a memoir of growing up in China during the violent trauma of the Cultural Revolution. Red Azalea became an international bestseller and propelled her career as a successful, critically acclaimed author. Twenty years later, Min returns to the story of her own life to give us the next chapter, an immigrant story that takes her from the shocking deprivations of her homeland to the sudden bounty of the promised land of America, without ...

This novel, described by the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review as "nothing short of miraculous," is the story of Zebra Wong, a Chinese girl whose pragmatic mind conflicts with her passionate heart; Lion Head, her classmate, whose penchant for romantic intrigue belies his political ambitions, and Katherine, the seductive American with the red lipstick and the wild laugh who teaches them English and other foreign concepts: individualism, sensuality, the Beatles. In Katheri...

The National bestselling author's historical novel "creates a fanciful yet believable world for the Nobel laureate Pearl Buck" ( San Francisco Chronicle ).It is the end of the nineteenth century and China is riding on the crest of great change, but for nine-year-old Willow, the only child of a destitute family in the small southern town of Chin-kiang, nothing ever seems to change. Until the day she meets Pearl, the eldest ...

An internationally best-selling author, Anchee Min draws upon her Chinese heritage to pen lush historical epics. Here she transports listeners to the Far East for a fictionalized account of acclaimed author Pearl Buck's youth. Arriving in late 19th-century China with her missionary parents, Buck is soon fascinated by her new home and strikes up a friendship with a young Chinese girl named Willow. The two become inseparable even as civil war, failed relationships, and world conflicts threat...

It is the final days of the Chinese Empire when Orchid, a beautiful seventeen-year-old from an aristocratic, but impoverished family, finds herself unexpectedly chosen to become a lower-ranking concubine of the Emperor. Inside the Forbidden City jealousies and foul play abound, but Orchid is determined to survive. Little does she know that China will collapse around her, and she will be its last Empress...

A revelatory and disturbing portrait of China, this is Anchee Min's celebrated memoir of growing up in the last years of Mao's China.As a child, Min was asked to publicly humiliate a teacher; at seventeen, she was sent to work at a labor collective. Forbidden to speak, dress, read, write, or love as she pleased, she found a lifeline in a secret love affair with another woman. Miraculously selected for the film version of one of Madame Mao's political operas, Min's life changed over...

At the end of the nineteenth century, China is rocked by humiliating foreign attacks and local rebellions. The only constant is the power wielded by one woman: the resilient, ever-resourceful Tzu Hsi, also known as Empress Orchid.Moving from the intimacy of the concubine quarters into the spotlight of the world stage, Orchid makes a dramatic metamorphosis from a strong-willed young woman to a wise political leader, who must not only face the perilous condition of her fading empire ...