The Courtesan by Alexandra Curry

Blurb: The Courtesan is an astonishing tale inspired by the real life of a woman who lived and loved in the extraordinary twilight decades of the Qing dynasty. To this day, Sai Jinhua is a legend in her native land of China, and this is her story, told the way it might have been.

The year is 1881. Seven-year-old Jinhua is left an orphan, alone and unprotected after her mandarin father’s summary execution for the crime of speaking the truth. For seven silver coins, she is sold to a brothel-keeper and subjected to the worst of human nature. Will the private ritual that is her father’s legacy and the wise friendship of the crippled brothel maid be enough to sustain her?

When an elegant but troubled scholar takes Jinhua as his concubine, she enters the close world of his jealous first wife. Yet it is Jinhua who accompanies him--as Emissary to the foreign devil nations of Prussia, Austro-Hungary, and Russia--on an exotic journey to Vienna. As he struggles to play his part in China's early, blundering diplomatic engagement with the western world, Jinhua’s eyes and heart are opened to the irresistible possibilities of a place that is mesmerizing and strange, where she will struggle against the constraints of tradition and her husband’s authority and seek to find “Great Love.”

Sai Jinhua is an altered woman when she returns to a changed and changing China, where a dangerous clash of cultures pits East against West. The moment arrives when Jinhua’s western sympathies will threaten not only her own survival, but the survival of those who are most dear to her.

A book that shines a small light on the large history of China’s relationship with the West, The Courtesan is a novel that distills, with the economy of a poem, a woman’s journey of untold miles to discern what is real and abiding.

Review: From protected child to a brothel's money tee to concubine of a scholar to traveling to Prussia with the then emissary and back to China, Alexandra Curry's The Courtesan is a sweeping tale of a girl who is transformed into a woman during a troubled period in China's history.

It is a story of finding friendship during the most trying of times, of sacrificing yourself and sometimes - inadvertently - others, and of finding redemption. It is also a journey to find what is real and what is not, how truth may come too late, and how patience can be projected even if the opposite is felt.

I enjoyed reading The Courtesan very much. Ms. Curry's writing brings the characters and time period alive for the reader (or at least for this reader). The books is complete in and of itself. However, I would have liked to know more about what happened to Sai Jinchua after her return to Suzhou with the boy. The author's note was also very much appreciated for the character's historical context.

(Blurb and image (c)Penguin Random House)