{"product_id":"9780730497752_the-empress-lover","title":"The Empress Lover","description":"A witty, playful, intriguing and ultimately very moving novel of identity and loss.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Stories are the only thing that defy death. Stories are truth. I hereby give you mine...' Peking, 1944: Sir Edmund Backhouse is a man of many parts. A polyglot scholar. An effete homosexual. A genius of perversity, a forger, arms salesman, occasional spy and fantasist. Also, if he is to be believed, the onetime lover of the redoubtable Empress Dowager of China, a woman many decades his senior. In his declining years, tended by his friend, Dr Hoeppli, he writes his memoir - 'a wild tale', as he calls it, 'far-fetched and fantastical'- of his affair with the Dowager Empress. Beijing, 2014: Linnie is an Australian woman of uncertain provenance struggling to make a living in Beijing. A Sinophile, a translator of film subtitles, the author of an unpublished novel about Backhouse called the Empress Lover. One day, she receives an intriguingly old-fashioned and formal invitation from a Professor H, an invitation that promises to reveal long hidden secrets of her family... And so two worlds collide. An enchantingly slippery, sinuous, playful - and ultimately very moving - novel of love, loss, identity and history from one of Australia's finest novelists. 'Jaivin's writing shines and burns.' Sunday Age\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\"\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\"\u003e'the Empress Lover is a fascinating work, infused as it is with China's history, Jaivin'\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\"\u003es experience of it, and her own capacious imagination. Surely this is the novel to gain her a reputation as one of Australia's\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\"\u003e best and most versatile writers.' Sydney Morning Herald\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-AUTOSPACE: ; mso-layout-grid-align: none\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: timesClassictext-Rg; mso-bidi-font-family: timesClassictext-Rg\"\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\"\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-AUTOSPACE: ; mso-layout-grid-align: none\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: timesClassictext-Rg; mso-bidi-font-family: timesClassictext-Rg\"\u003e\u003cfont face=\"Calibri\"\u003e'A supple and intricate piece of storytelling ... a touching,inventive and gratifyingly unpredictable novel.' the Australian\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Linda Jaivin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46920200421525,"sku":"9780730497752","price":9.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0484\/3175\/9509\/files\/9780730497752_686b7435-9d93-40b8-bca3-145e8c40808e.jpg?v=1776890106","url":"https:\/\/harpercollins.com.au\/products\/9780730497752_the-empress-lover","provider":"HarperCollins AU","version":"1.0","type":"link"}