Pavilion of Women

On her fortieth birthday, Madame Wu announces that she will withdraw from her husband's bed and select a concubine to fulfil his remaining expectations. Having managed a large and respected household for years, she believes that careful planning can preserve family harmony while giving her the solitude she has never possessed. Instead, the new arrangement exposes jealousies, dependencies and desires that her authority had previously kept hidden.

Freedom from daily administration allows Madame Wu to read, study English and receive lessons from Brother André, an excommunicated Catholic priest whose ideas challenge her understanding of love and duty. Her intellectual awakening alters the entire compound, from servants and daughters-in-law to the husband she thought she understood completely. The novel examines women's seclusion, concubinage and family hierarchy in Republican China through a woman attempting to transform herself without abandoning responsibility for others.