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Meet the Author: ‘Empress Dowager Cixi’ by bestselling author Jung Chang

Category
Culture
Meet the Author
Date
Date
Thursday 13 November 2014

International bestselling author Jung Chang reveals the remarkable story of the woman who single-handedly dragged China into the modern age.

Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) is the most important woman in Chinese history. The book tells the story of her tumultuous reign. She ruled China for decades and brought a medieval empire into the modern age.  Cixi at once launched a palace coup against the regents appointed by her husband and made herself the real ruler of China – behind the throne, literally, with a silk screen separating her from her officials who were all male.

Jung Chang vividly describes how Cixi fought against monumental obstacles to change China. She inaugurated women’s liberation, and embarked on the path to introduce parliamentary elections to China. Jung Chang takes the reader into the depths of her splendid Summer Palace and the harem of Beijing’s Forbidden City, where she lived surrounded by eunuchs – with one of whom she fell in love, with tragic consequences. Packed with drama, fast-paced and gripping, it is both a panoramic depiction of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of a woman.

The book presents a revolutionary historical thinking about a crucial period in China’s – and the world’s – history. This exclusive event with one of China’s most famous authors is the perfect opportunity to discover more about Chinese culture and is free to attend and is open to all.

Event Agenda :

Registration and refreshments from 17:00

Talk begins: 18:15

The talk will be followed by a Q & A session.

End time: 20:00

Venue:

Conference Auditorium

Conference Auditorium 2 is located next to the Edge Sports Centre on the University of Leeds Campus (Willow Terrace Rd Leeds, West Yorkshire LS2 9JT).

For directions please use the map here (select Conference Auditorium on the left menu), and for further details of the location on campus please use the map here (location 100). Parking is available in the University car park.

For a chance to win a copy of the book please visit here for details.

'Filled with new revelations, it's a gripping and surprising story of an extraordinary woman in power …A powerful read.’         History magazine

‘If there is one woman who mattered in the history of modern China, it is the empress dowager Cixi … [Jung Chang] has a wonderful eye for the telling detail and excels at unravelling palace intrigues and corridor politics.’  Sunday Times

'This is history at its most readable’  Evening Standard

About the author:

Jung Chang is the best-selling author of Wild Swans (1991, which the Asian Wall Street Journal called the most read book about China), and Mao: The Unknown Story (2005, with Jon Halliday), which was described by Time Magazine as ‘an atom bomb of a book’.  Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 15 million copies outside mainland China.