From the Publisher: In a sweeping, erotically charged story that moves gracefully from the intimately personal to the great stage of world history, Anchee Min renders a powerful tale of passion, betrayal, and survival and creates a finely nuanced and always ambiguous portrait of one of the most fascinating, and vilified, women of the twentieth century. Madame Mao is almost universally known as the "white-boned demon" -ambitious, vindictive, and cruel-whose...

A fictionalized portrait of the beautiful and intellectual Greek courtesan, Aspasia, who championed women's rights and, as mistress to Pericles, fostered cultural development.