The Rouge of the North - Tapa dura

"The sheer quality of Chang's prose emerges clearly, and her voice--raw, low, exquisitely modulated--has a sound like none other in the canon of Chinese or, for that matter, American prose stylists. . . . Chang's poetic humor and unerringly apt appraisal of human character emerge with switchblade precision. . . . Chang's characters stand on the brink of an abyss, frightened, desperate, yet forever caught in the light of the author's own singularly ironic poise. It's the counterpoint of that poise against the background of her vivid settings that makes Chang such a compulsively readable storyteller."--"Boston Book Review

The Rouge of the North is the story of Yindi, a beautiful young bride who marries the blind, bedridden son of a rich and noble family. Captive to household ritual, to the strategies and contempt of her sisters-in-law, and to the exacting dictates of her husband's mother, Yindi is pressed beneath the weight of an existence that offers no hope of change. Dramatic events in the outside world fail to make their way into this insular society. Chang's brilliant portrayal of the slow suffocation of passion, moral strength, and physical vitality--together with her masterful evocation of the sights, smells, and sounds of daily existence--make The Rouge of the North a remarkable chronicle of a vanished way of life.