Liu Rushi

Liu Rushi was a Chinese poet, courtesan and intellectual of the late Ming and early Qing period. Renowned for literary talent and independence, she moved within elite Jiangnan cultural circles and married the scholar-official Qian Qianyi. Their lives became closely associated with the moral and political dilemmas created by the Ming collapse and the establishment of Qing rule.

Celebrated as one of the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai, she published poetry while young, moved among leading scholars and married the poet and official Qian Qianyi. Her learning, political convictions and response to the Ming collapse made her a lasting figure in Chinese cultural history.

In Alice Poon’s Tales of Ming Courtesans, In seventeenth-century Nanjing, Liu Rushi, Chen Yuanyuan and Li Xiangjun rise from exploitation and precarious childhoods to become celebrated members of the Qinhuai pleasure quarter.