Raise the Red Lantern: Three Novellas

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In 1930s provincial China, Lotus, a young woman whose father's suicide has destroyed her family's finances, becomes the fourth concubine of a wealthy merchant. The red lanterns that light her courtyard signal her lord's favor — and their absence signals her ruin. Inside the compound's walls, four women compete for attention, affection, and survival with the desperate strategy of chess players who know the board is rigged. Su Tong's title novella, adapted into Zhang Yimou's acclaimed film, anchors a collection that explores the brutal underside of pre-revolutionary China. The prose has a stunning, simple beauty that makes the worlds of prostitution, poverty, and addiction it depicts all the more devastating by contrast. Three novellas about women trapped in beautiful prisons — and the discovery that the red lantern illuminates not love but the architecture of control.