Red Queen Pa: A Transcultural Tragicomedy - Softcover

Drabble, Margaret

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156032708 ISBN 13: 9780156032704

Publisher: Mariner, 2005

Synopsis

Barbara Halliwell, on a grant at Oxford, receives an unexpected package-a centuries-old memoir by a Korean crown princess. An appropriate gift indeed for her impending trip to Seoul, but Barbara doesn't know who sent it. On the plane, she avidly reads the memoir, a story of great intrigue as well as tragedy. The Crown Princess Hyegyong recounts in extraordinary detail the ways of the Korean court and confesses the family dramas that left her childless and her husband dead by his own hand. When a Korean man Barbara meets at her hotel offers to guide her to some of the haunts of the crown princess, Barbara tours the royal courts and develops a strong affinity for everything related to the princess and her mysterious life. Barbara's time in Korea goes quickly, but captivated by her experience and wanting to know more about the princess, she wonders if her life can ever be the way it was before.

About this title

Review:

PRAISE FOR THE RED QUEEN

"Drabble has written a moving tale of fate, moral responsibility and love."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Drabble's tale is a quiet love song to literature, an illustration as to how reader and subject become intertwined. As Yeats wrote, how can we know the dancer from the dance?"--Chicago Tribune

"An 18th-century Korean princess tells her harrowing life story in the lyrical first half of Drabble's lovely, intelligent 16th novel. A-." - Entertainment Weekly

"Drabble's tale is a love song to literature, an illustration as to how reader and subject become intertwined."
--Chicago Tribune (10/03/2004)

"Editor's Choice"
--Entertainment Weekly (10/08/2004)

"With her usual deftness and clarity, Drabble crosses cultures and centuries...engrossing and provocative"
-- (08/15/2004)

"A deliciously evocative tale of palace intrigue...one of the most inventive works of fiction in recent memory"
-- (11/21/2004)

"Drabble's plain narrative tenaciousness gives her writing transparency and fire."
--Village Voice (11/03/2004)

From the Back Cover:

"A love song to literature." --Chicago Tribune

On the cusp of a trip to Korea, Barbara Halliwell receives an unexpected package with no return address. Inside she finds a centuries-old memoir by a Korean crown princess that details the mysteries of the Korean court as well as the dramas that left the princess childless and her husband dead by his own hand. In Seoul, the intriguing Dr. Oo takes her through the courts themselves, an experience that leaves her as enchanted by him as by the mysterious life of the princess. She returns to England spellbound, wondering whether her life can ever return to normal--and whether she truly wants it to.
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year
A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year
"An 18th-century Korean princess tells her harrowing life story in...Drabble's lovely, intelligent 16th novel. A-."--Entertainment Weekly

Margaret Drabble is the author of many novels, including The Seven Sisters, The Peppered Moth, and The Witch of Exmoor, and is the editor of The Oxford Companion to English Literature. She lives in London.
Reading Group Guide available at www.HarcourtBooks.com

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0156032708
• ISBN 13: 9780156032704
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 348