Hoelun

Hoelun was the mother of Temüjin, later Genghis Khan, and a major matriarch in the early history of the Mongol Empire. After her husband Yesügei’s death, she kept the abandoned family alive, managed rivalries among her sons and helped preserve the household from which Temüjin built his power.

Jeanne Blanchet’s Forger of Empire places Hoelun within a narrative shaped by family, marriage and personal loyalty, empire, conquest and resistance, and political ambition and government.