Empire of Heaven

Fülszöveg

Embracing the mysterious China of a century ago, Empire ofHeaven transports you into a society virtually closed off from Western eyes and into the life of an extraordinary woman who was warrior and healer, concubine and spy. Inspired by the authors own family history Empire ofHeaven portrays the triumphant odyssey of a woman of very humán desires who was transformed by destiny into the symbol of revolution during the Taiping Rebellion. From the superstition-bound peasant villages to the perfumed decadence of the Forbidden City Manchu China was a land of contrasts: barbarism and elegance, poverty and lavish wealth. Into its midst came Hung, a charismatic leader who proclaimed himself the younger brother of Jesus and promised an Empire ofHeaven on earth to the oppressed. Village after village emptied as the people followed him in a violent quest to depose the emperor and build a new empire. To Rulan, the daughter of a village spirit woman, Hung is a half-mad stranger whose life she... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Embracing the mysterious China of a century ago, Empire ofHeaven transports you into a society virtually closed off from Western eyes and into the life of an extraordinary woman who was warrior and healer, concubine and spy. Inspired by the authors own family history Empire ofHeaven portrays the triumphant odyssey of a woman of very humán desires who was transformed by destiny into the symbol of revolution during the Taiping Rebellion. From the superstition-bound peasant villages to the perfumed decadence of the Forbidden City Manchu China was a land of contrasts: barbarism and elegance, poverty and lavish wealth. Into its midst came Hung, a charismatic leader who proclaimed himself the younger brother of Jesus and promised an Empire ofHeaven on earth to the oppressed. Village after village emptied as the people followed him in a violent quest to depose the emperor and build a new empire. To Rulan, the daughter of a village spirit woman, Hung is a half-mad stranger whose life she saves with her gift of healing. Sympathetic to the rebels, Rulan nonetheless hides from their strange leaders growing obsession with her. She serves as a spy in the house of the great Manchu generál Li, where she is nurse to his formidable mother and mistress to the Li heir. And it is there that she meets the captive Pao An, a hothead with a poet's tenderness, who awakens in her a passionate love and a powerful newyearning to create her own future.
In Rulan, Empire ofHeaven has one of the most remarkable heroines of recent historical fiction-gifted in the ancient art of healing, yet fiercely modern as warrior and woman. Her story is told within a multilayered portrait of China: the tiny villages where the futility of personal ambition spawns gambling, ópium addiction, and finally rebellion; the house of Li, ruthlessly trying to hold on to past triumphs; the society of Golden Orchids, which shelters Rulan-gentle women who are ferocious in the battle to protect their way of life; and the Taiping rebels, led by a madman, yet glorious in their desire for hope and change. Grand and sweeping, the product of years of research, Empire ofHeaven unfolds a vibrant tapestry of love and war in an endlessly fascinating land. LINDA CHING SLEDGE, a professor of English, received a Rockefeller fellowship to complete the extensive research that is the basis of Empire ofHeaven. She lives in Westchester County, New York, with her husband, publishing executive Gary Sledge, and their two sons. Vissza