This book is Lisa See’s eighth historical fiction novel centered around Asian history and culture, something that’s very personal to the author. In this way, women are carrying family, culture, and society on their backs. See sought out translators and scholars to learn about Tan Yunxian, a physician and author whose book is still in print over 500 years later. “Tan Yunxian, by all reports, was a proper Confucian woman: She went into an arranged marriage, she had four children, and she managed a household. “While I couldn’t travel to Wuxi, where Tan Yunxian lived, I have been to many other water towns in the Yangtze Delta.

Source: New York Times June 25, 2023 17:27 UTC