In this stunning portrait, Giuseppe Castiglione is chosen
as painter and religious emissary from Portugal to the
Emperor of China during the 1720s. He has to become a
Jesuit in training, before he is allowed to sail with his
young woman apprentice Laura Biondecci.
Niuhuru is a young girl, only thirteen, when she is
selected to join minor prince Yong's household and goes to
live in THE GARDEN OF PERFECT BRIGHTNESS as his home is
called. This is an estate outside the capital with many
servants, wives and eunuchs. While Niuhuru is technically a
wife with her own house, she is fortunate to have a
tolerant husband who waits for her to mature before
requiring intimacy. Meanwhile, she gets to know the artist
from abroad who has been summoned to paint the Garden of
Perfect Brightness.
With a brightly coloured embroidery of emperors, jealous
wives, loyal servants, frightened servants, children and
soldiers, this tale brings the courtly life of China to our
fascinated gaze. Poisons, illness and politics all sour the
beautiful images, while the life inside the Forbidden
Palace is presented as stifling and artificial by contrast
with the estate. Giuseppe and Laura round off the tale with
their culture contrast, dismayed that the Chinese don't
want to see chiaroscuro but half seduced by the exciting
surroundings.
Author Melissa Addey tells us at the end what the actual
history books say about her characters, and how she made
the personal relationships strengthen her story. She is a
Resident Writer at the British Library, writes fiction and
non-fiction, and is taking a PhD in Creative Writing at the
University of Surrey. THE GARDEN OF PERFECT BRIGHTNESS is
part of her series called 'The Forbidden City' and she has
created another series about 'The Moorish Empire', in case
you can't get enough of her historical romances.
The most beautiful garden in the world. The man who built
it. The woman who had to leave it.
China, 1720s. Giuseppe Castiglione, a promising and
ambitious Italian painter, is recruited by the Jesuits to
serve the Emperor of China. But his painting style is
rejected as inauspicious. Meanwhile, Niuhuru, a grey-eyed,
too-tall girl is chosen as a concubine to a minor prince and
sent to live in the Garden of Perfect Brightness, where
Giuseppe meets her when he is tasked with turning the Garden
into a wonderland for the Qianlong Emperor. But as the
Garden changes and Niuhuru is swept upwards to ever-greater
importance, is something precious being lost? And will
either of them ever be able to admit to their true feelings
for one another?
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