Review: "The Courtesan" by Alexandra Curry

This is the story of Sai Jinhua, a young Chinese girl who was forced into prostitution. This novel is loosely based on events that occurred in her real life. As a young girl of 12, she is forced into prostitution. She becomes the concubine and then wife of a high Chinese official and accompanies him to the West in Vienna. There she meets and falls in love with Count Alfred von Waldersee. This relationship dictates the rest of her life and causes her to be in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion where she loses everything, her home and her best friend.

This was an interesting story that was filled with information that kept me turning pages. Sai Jinhau’s life as a young child was heartbreaking. The descriptions of the foot binding, life in the brothel and the details about the Boxer Rebellion were thought-provoking. These details in themselves made the story noteworthy. I do wish that the characters themselves had been more fully developed. People came in and out of the story that appeared crucial but you never really got to know them and understand why they reacted the way they did. A lot of the tale appeared very one dimensional.

This is a great story to begin to understand the life of the young girls’ forced to be courtesans and also the discontent that lead to the Boxer Rebellion. It inspired me to research both these and Sai Jinhua’s life more deeply!