The Teahouse Fire
Books / Paperback
Books › Fiction › Historical › General
ISBN: 159448273X / Publisher: Riverhead Books, December 2007
Relocated from 1866 New York to Japan by an abusive missionary guardian, young Aurelia Bernard befriends the daughter of Kyoto's most influential tea master, who accepts her into the family in spite of disapproving conventions and instructs her about the fading tradition of the tea ceremony. A first novel. Reprint.
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“Like attending seasons of elegant tea parties—each one resplendent with character and drama. Delicious.”—Maxine Hong KingstonThe story of two women whose lives intersect in late-nineteenth-century Japan, The Teahouse Fire is also a portrait of one of the most fascinating places and times in all of history—Japan as it opens its doors to the West. It was a period when wearing a different color kimono could make a political statement, when women stopped blackening their teeth to profess an allegiance to Western ideas, and when Japan’s most mysterious rite—the tea ceremony—became not just a sacramental meal, but a ritual battlefield.We see it all through the eyes of Aurelia, an American orphan adopted by the Shin family, proprietors of a tea ceremony school, after their daughter, Yukako, finds her hiding on their grounds. Aurelia becomes Yukako’s closest companion, and they, the Shin family, and all of Japan face a time of great challenges and uncertainty. Told in an enchanting and unforgettable voice, The Teahouse Fire is a lively, provocative, and lushly detailed historical novel of epic scope and compulsive readability.
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