The Legend of Wang Zhaojun

In the turbulent Warring States era, Qin’s iron armies sweep through the feudal states. Amid the countryside of Qi lies a humble, thatched cottage where the future Wang Zhaojun is born.

With warm, accessible prose, this book recounts Zhaojun’s country years, from 278 to 260 BCE: from a baby’s babbling innocence to the sudden maturity brought by her mother’s death; from learning to read beneath the old locust tree by their humble home to her first attempts at needlework by lamplight; from the first blossoming of her beauty in her early teens to the gradual emergence of her gentle character and talents.

No one is born an unparalleled beauty. She is simply an ordinary girl in a time of chaos, protected by her father and brothers and warmed by the kindness of her neighbors. In poverty, she remains true to herself; through hardship, she cultivates inner strength. Her fingertips carry the warmth of needlework, her eyes the clarity of a bookish spirit, and deep in her bones lies the resilience of a country girl.

The warmth of daily life in the countryside conceals tenderness, while the winds of a troubled age hint at what is to come. This volume captures her purity and vitality before she ever enters the palace, the growth and steadfastness of a girl from a poor family, and the seeds of fate quietly taking root. When her graceful beauty meets the torrents of a chaotic age, this girl from a thatched cottage in Qi will shed her youthful country ways, shoulder a mission spanning mountains and rivers, and write a legend that will endure for a thousand years.