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Nan A. Talese
February 2008
On Sale: January 22, 2008
Featuring: Haruko
368 pages
ISBN: 0385515715
EAN: 9780385515719
Hardcover
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Fiction
It is 1959 when Haruko, a young woman of good family,
marries the Crown Prince of Japan, the heir to the
Chrysanthemum Throne. She is the first non-aristocratic
woman to enter the longest-running, almost hermetically
sealed, and mysterious monarchy in the world. Met with
cruelty and suspicion by the Empress and her minions, Haruko
is controlled at every turn. The only interest the court has
in her is her ability to produce an heir. After finally
giving birth to a son, Haruko suffers a nervous breakdown
and loses her voice. However, determined not to be crushed
by the imperial bureaucrats, she perseveres. Thirty years
later, now Empress herself, she plays a crucial role in
persuading another young woman—a rising star in the foreign
ministry—to accept the marriage proposal of her son, the
Crown Prince. The consequences are tragic and dramatic. Told in the voice of Haruko, meticulously researched and
superbly imagined, The Commoner is the mesmerizing, moving,
and surprising story of a brutally rarified and controlled
existence at once hidden and exposed, and of a complex
relationship between two isolated women who, despite being
visible to all, are truly understood only by each other.
With the unerring skill of a master storyteller, John
Burnham Schwartz has written his finest novel yet.
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