Hello. I'm Catherine Weller and this is The Open Book.

This week's selection is Empress: a novel by Shan Sa.

Peking born Shan Sa first caught my reading attention with her 2003 novella, The Girl Who Played Go. That book was a tightly constructed work, nearly flat in its tone and dazzling in its matter of fact brutality. Shan's writing reminded me of Marguerite Duras'. When I heard about her latest novel, I eagerly awaited a galley. When Empress arrived, I discovered a very different novel.

Empress is a fictional autobiography of the seventh century Chinese Empress Wu, the first and only female Chinese ruler. The Tang dynasty of china was a period of general prosperity and relative freedom for women. Girls and women in the aristocratic classes were allowed educations and even minor political roles. Into this world was born Heaven Light - daughter of a minor official and the future Sacred Emperor of the Golden Wheel. That's right, I said emperor. For little Heaven Light became so powerful that she had herself declared Emperor of China.

The political intrigues of the Chinese courts could make European royal maneuverings look like light opera. Heaven Light was a master political strategist. A famous and respected general, who was charmed by her beauty and intelligence, suggested her initial appointment to the imperial court. As a concubine of the fifth class, she was one of thousands of women in the imperial gynaeceium. She was never chosen to sleep with the emperor. Despite that, she caught the attention of many during her service there. Upon the emperor's death, she - along with the other imperial concubines - was forced to join a Buddhist monastery. Unbowed, she engineered her release from the monastery to the imperial courts where she meteorically rose through the ranks. Outmaneuvering and outlasting all other wives and concubines, she finally married the emperor, Little Phoenix. This was considered scandalous incest since she was a concubine to his father. Still, Empress Wu strategized, maneuvered and managed affairs of state - at first secretly then openly. She outlived her husband and most of her children. She outsmarted many usurpers and aspirants to the throne. At the age of 80 she abdicated to a son and died soon afterward.

Shan Sa would have to write a sweeping epic to do such a figure justice. Prior to reading this book I would have doubted her ability to successfully undertake the task. But she has done just that. Her language, at times lush and poetic and at other times harsh and demanding, perfectly evoke a woman as confident and powerful as Empress Wu must have been. The physical details of the period's pomp are fascinating. I often find myself growing weary in the middle of long historical novels, but I never did during Empress. Sa Shan has created a masterful portrait of an intriguing and little known woman.

You've been listening to The Open Book on KCPW. I'm Catherine Weller.

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