I AM HEAVEN

by Jinsie K.S. Chun ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 1973

This factually based story of a 7th-century Tang Empress is the kind of story Pearl Buck might have chosen early in her career (cf. Imperial Woman) told in a manner reminiscent of her later, more enfeebled, years. Chao, at fourteen, was sent to the court with dreams of Imperial Concubine-age even if she never got past the Fourth Rank. There she shared the disappointments and worse of other discards until at 25 she was summoned to the bed of Kao Tsung, the Crown Prince, and enforced her position by bearing him a son (even if he had four others she would later contend with as well as an Empress she would dethrone). Chao ultimately achieves her royal ends; the timid Kao Tsung dies declaring she's a murderess; and she lives to a supreme if difficult old age at 80. There are times when you are not sure whether Mme. Chun has Catherine the Great or Gloria Steinem in mind as a more modern incarnation of the determined Chao but it doesn't really matter since this is a very dilute form of that hybrid genre we call historical fiction bearing a YA designation difficult to justify.

Pub Date: Sept. 10, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macrae Smith

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1973

Categories: FICTION