Book
Peony
First published 1948
Peony is sold as a child into the household of a prosperous Jewish merchant family in Kaifeng and grows up beside their son David. Although she remains a Chinese bondmaid, affection and shared childhood make her central to the family. When she and David fall in love, his mother insists that he marry Leah, the rabbi's daughter, in the hope of preserving a community whose religious knowledge and separate identity are fading.
The conflict is not simply between Jewish and Chinese custom. David is drawn to both traditions, Peony understands the household better than its members understand themselves, and every possible marriage carries a different form of loss. Set in the 1850s as rebellion destabilises Qing China, the novel treats the Kaifeng Jews' assimilation through domestic choices about worship, ancestry, love and whether a community survives by remaining apart or by becoming part of the society around it.
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