The Nobel Prize-winning author's perceptive fable of cross-cultural passions in nineteenth-century China. In 1850s China, a young girl, Peony, is sold to work as a bondmaid for a rich Jewish family in Kaifeng. Jews have lived for centuries in this region of the country, but by the mid-nineteenth century, assimilation has begun taking its toll on their small enclave. When Peony and the family's son, David, grow up and fall in love with one another,...

The exhilarating novel of an elegant woman's subversive new chapter in life. At forty, Madame Wu is beautiful and much respected as the wife of one of China's oldest upper-class houses. Her birthday wish is to find a young concubine for her husband and to move to separate quarters, starting a new chapter of her life. When her wish is granted, she finds herself at leisure, no longer consumed by running a sixty-person household. Now she's free to read...

An American millionaire builds a Christian seminary in India, furthering his spiritual mission-and setting into motion a generations-spanning cycle of miscommunication and fracture within his family Beginning in the 1890s, Come, My Beloved describes an American family's involvement with India over four generations. Touched by the poverty he encounters in Bombay, self-made millionaire David MacArd establishes a seminary for Christian missionary workers,...

An enthralling tale, divided between China and America, of two friends inspired by radically opposed ideals This deeply felt novel tells the story of William Lane and Clem Miller, Americans who meet in China as youths at the end of the nineteenth century. Separated by the Boxer Rebellion, they're destined to travel wildly different courses in life. From a background of wealth and privilege, William becomes a power-hungry and controlling media magnate....

A provocative and fascinating exploration of male--female relationships by the Nobel Prize--winning author of The Good Earth. Pearl S. Buck grew up in China, accustomed to its traditions, but when she moved to the United States as an adult in the 1930s she was struck by the cultural differences in gender roles and expectations. In nine short chapters, she applies this personal experience to an exploration of the power dynamics of the American household,...

A wealthy painter finds his inspiration, and tumultuous love, in a girl he meets by chance At the turn of the century, an upper-class painter from Philadelphia goes searching for inspiration. He finds his muse on a farm-the farmer's beautiful and humble daughter. His portrait of her becomes one of his most inspired works, but his passion for the illiterate girl doesn't stop at the easel: He returns to marry her and settle down to country life-a journey...

In this novel about dissidence and exile, a man is confronted with the decision to either desert his family or let his homeland be ravaged When Wu I-wan starts taking an interest in revolution, trouble follows: Winding up in prison, he becomes friends with fellow dissident En-lan. Later, his name is put on a death list and he's shipped off to Japan. Thankfully, his father, a wealthy Shanghai banker, has made arrangements for his exile, putting him...

A widow's New England peace is interrupted by her feelings for two brilliant men, one much younger and the other quite older-and the dilemma of choosing between them At forty-three, Edith has lost a husband, and has children who have children of their own. Living in a large Vermont house, her days are spent idly reading and playing music. But all of this is to change when two candidates for her affection arrive on the scene. The first is thirty years...

The progress towards women's equality has been hard-won, but the capitalist system has been able to absorb, even incorporate many of these gains to its own advantage, as is shown in Yassamine Mather's essays in this book. Today, the unprecedented global humanitarian crisis, with its wars and mass poverty and starvation, has its greatest impact on women and children, and the particular sensibilities of women are essential to any understanding of and...