Min writes in a publisher's accompanying interview that 'he story of Orchid's heart is what I am telling,' citing access to records from Orchid's hometown of Wuhu, and reading Orchid's favorite operas, poems and books in ancient Chinese as part of her exhaustive research to understand Orchid's 'human dimension.' Somewhere between Min's revisionist creation and history's monster lays the true last empress. Man drowns in Bay Area lake trying to retrieve oar.State Farm is no longer accepting property insurance applications in California.Keanu Reeves was everywhere at Bay Area music festival BottleRock.Man killed dad, tried to kill 2 girls camping in California state park.Massive Bay Area burglary operation uncovered after single theft, police say.'Made me sound crazy': Ayesha Curry regrets talk show appearance.

'Mind blowing': A hardware store is selling the best waffles in NorCal.Upon Nuharoo's early death, Orchid takes control of the royal court, for which history will revile her as a symbol of power gone awry.

Min's sequel, 'The Last Empress,' opens with the widowed Orchid, now co-regent with her rival, Empress Nuharoo, to Orchid's son, Tung Chih, who is too young to ascend the throne. When Orchid, or Lady Yehonala, as she is initially titled, gives birth to the only heir, she becomes the Empress Tzu Hsi, or Empress Orchid, the final empress of the Ch'ing Dynasty.

Elated to have been chosen - and driven to get royally noticed - Orchid embarks on her new life in the legendary Forbidden City through a side gate, because only the chief wife, Nuharoo, can pass through the main entrance. Min's 'Empress Orchid' (2004) introduced a naive but determined teenage girl from a poor province, selected to be one of three imperial concubines (not to be confused with the lowly 3,000 others His Highness keeps in the palace, just in case).

'Although I had every luxury and my duties were often rewarding, Imperial glory also meant loneliness and living in constant fear of rebellion and assassination,' according to the title character in Anchee Min's latest book, 'The Last Empress.' And let's not forget the basics that were also 'taken away': 'the freedom to wander, the right to love, and most of all, the right to be myself.' High prices to pay for a life in a sequestered palace, only to go down in history as a 'mastermind of pure evil and intrigue,' as cited in one of numerous quotes Min offers on the book's opening page.īut Min means to set the record straight - albeit in historical novel form - reclaiming the eponymous empress of 19th century China with a double-volume revisionist account of her much-maligned life. Any way you look at it, royal life is hell.

Empress orchid review