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Story of China's First Female Empress
Regan Books
May 2006
Featuring: Empress Wu (Heavenlight)
336 pages
ISBN: 0060817585
Hardcover
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Historical
"My skin was tanned by the sun; my figure was
slim with bronzed muscle. I was like a challenge to those
pale faces and concealed bodies. . . . To other women the
choice of clothes was a form of ingenious exhibition, a
shameless seduction. To me, dresses were like a breastplate
that I put on to set off to war against this life."
-- from EMPRESS
Such is the voice of Shan Sa's unforgettable heroine in her
latest literary masterpiece, Empress. Empress Wu, one
of China's most controversial figures, was its first and
only female emperor, who emerged in the seventh century
during the great Tang Dynasty and ushered in a golden age.
Throughout history, her name has been defamed and her story
distorted by those taking vengeance on a woman who dared to
become emperor. But now, for the first time in thirteen
centuries, Empress Wu (or Heavenlight, as we come to know
her) flings open the gates of her Forbidden City and tells
her own astonishing tale -- revealing a fascinating, complex
figure who in many ways remains modern to this day.
Heavenlight's story begins with her birth into the humble
yet noble Wu clan. Her parents had wanted a boy, but destiny
will carry their precocious daughter farther than they ever
dreamed. At the age of twelve, she is called by decree to
serve the emperor as a Talented One of the fifth imperial
rank. Leaving behind her beloved mother and sister, she is
escorted to the Forbidden City and enters the imperial
gynaeceum, which houses ten thousand concubines. In
her lavish yet sequestered new life, Heavenlight soon
discovers that the great halls are teeming with seductions,
plots, murders, and brazen acts of treason. Propelled by a
shrewd intelligence, an extraordinary will, and a close
friendship with the imperial heir, the girl who gallops
horses and performs archery as brilliantly as any man sheds
her childhood and rises through the ranks to the very
pinnacle of power. On the one hand, she proves herself to be
a political mastermind who can quell insurrections and open
wide the routes of international trade; on the other, she's
a passionate patron of the arts who brings Chinese
civilization to unsurpassed heights of beauty and
sophistication. And throughout her extraordinary reign, we
are privy to her innermost struggles. Writing with
epic assurance, poetry, and vivid historic detail, Shan Sa
plumbs the psychological and philosophical depths of what it
means to be a striving mortal in a tumultuous, power-hungry
world. Empress is a great literary feat and a
revelation for the ages.
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