Empress Orchid

Anchee Min’s two-volume Empress Orchid sequence reimagines the life of Empress Dowager Cixi, called Orchid or Tzu Hsi in the novels. The first volume follows an impoverished young noblewoman into the Forbidden City, where the birth of the Xianfeng Emperor’s surviving son gives her a place within the Qing succession as rebellion and foreign invasion threaten the dynasty.

The Last Empress continues Orchid’s story through regency, court faction, the reigns of Tongzhi and Guangxu, foreign intervention and the Boxer Rebellion. Together the novels present late Qing politics through a ruler traditionally depicted as either despot or victim, concentrating on the personal compromises, dynastic responsibilities and political violence behind her long exercise of power.