The Moon Opera

by Bi, Feiyu

• ISBN13: 9780151012947
• ISBN10: 0151012946
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-01-29
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

The debut novel of one of China's rising young literary talentsa gem of a book that takes a piercing look into the world of Chinese opera and its female stars In a fit of diva jealousy, Xiao Yanqiu, star of The Moon Opera, disfigures her understudy with boiling water. Spurned by the troupe, she turns to teaching. Twenty years later, a rich cigarette-factory boss offers to underwrite a restaging of the cursed opera, but only on the condition that Xiao Yanqiu return to the role of Chang'e. So she does, this time believing she has fully become the immortal moon goddess. Set against the drama, intrigue, jealousy, retribution, and redemption of backstage Peking opera, The Moon Opera is a stunning portrait of women in a world that simultaneously reveres and restricts them. Bi Feiyu, one of China's young literary stars, re-creates all the temptations and triumphs of the stage the world over in this gem of a novel.

Author Biography

BI FEIYU is one of the most respected authors and screenwriters in China. He was born in 1964 in Xinghua, in the province of Jiangsu. A journalist and poet as well as a prize-winning novelist, he cowrote the film Shanghai Triad, directed by the acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou.