The Interior

Acknowledgments

In 1996, while in search of bear farms for Flower Net, I found myself in a small and extremely remote village in Sichuan Province. The village had no telephone service and had ru

I was blessed with i

I hate to see death or illness either romanticized or glorified. To keep that from happening in my own work, I have relied on expert advice from Dr. Xiuling Ma, Dr. Pamela Malony, and Dr. Toni Long. I am beholden as well to the librarians at the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library at UCLA for their assistance.

I am continually inspired by those writers who've written memoirs or chronicled China 's turmoil of the last century. For readers who'd like to pursue the subject, I highly recommend He Liyi's Mr. China's Son, Peter J. Seybolt's Throwing the Emperor from the Horse: Portrait of a Village Leader in China, 1923-1995, Huang Shu-min's The Spiral Road, and Chihua Wen's The Red Mirror: Children of China's Cultural Revolution. An afternoon spent in a Hong Kong bookstore uncovered Ungrounded Empires, which featured an eye-opening essay by Ching Kawn Lee, a sociologist who, I believe, is one of the few outsiders to work in and report on factories in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Jim Ma

The nasty Pearl Je

A book like this can't be written without help and guidance. My agent, Sandra Dijkstra, and her wonderful staff have given me encouragement, astute criticism, and, most important, great peace of mind. I'm thankful as well to the wonderful work of Carolyn Marino, my American editor at HarperCollins, and Kate Parkin, my English editor at Century. Although Eamon Dolan has moved to another house, I continue to be grateful for his imprint on this story. I have been fortunate to receive further assistance from Arlene Gharabeigie, Alicia Diaz, Jessica Saltsman, and Sasha Stone, all of whom have been unstinting with their energy, hard work, and good humor.

Last but not least, I want to thank my family: Ariana, Baby Dash, John, Leslee, A

Lisa See

Lisa See, author of the critically-acclaimed international bestseller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005), has always been intrigued by stories that have been lost, forgotten, or deliberately covered up, whether in the past or happening right now in the world today. For Snow Flower, she traveled to a remote area of China – where she was told she was only the second foreigner ever to visit – to research the secret writing invented, used, and kept a secret by women for over a thousand years. Amy Tan called the novel “achingly beautiful, a marvel of imagination.” Others agreed, and foreign-language rights for Snow Flower were sold to 36 countries. The novel also became a New York Times bestseller, a Booksense Number One Pick, and has won numerous awards domestically and internationally.

Ms. See’s new novel once again delves into forgotten history. Peony in Love takes place in 17th-century China in the Yangzi River delta. It's based on the true story of three "lovesick maidens," who were married to the same man – one right after the other, not one reaching age twenty. Together they wrote the first book of its kind to have been written and published anywhere in the world by women. (The lovesick maidens were part of a much larger phenomenon. In the 17th century, there were more women writers in China who were being published than altogether in the rest of the world at that time.) Ultimately, Peony in Love about the bonds of female friendship, the power of words, the desire that all women have to be heard, and finally those emotions that are so strong that they transcend time, place, and perhaps even death.

Ms. See was born in Paris but grew up in Los Angeles, spending much of her time in Chinatown. Her first book, On Gold Mountain: The One Hundred Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family (1995), was a national bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book. The book traces the journey of Lisa’s great-grandfather, Fong See, who overcame obstacles at every step to become the 100-year-old godfather of Los Angeles ’s Chinatown and the patriarch of a sprawling family.