Chinese history is long, sprawling and gloriously messy. It is full of heroes who are also villains, prosperous ages and violent rebellions, extraordinary cultural and scientific leaps and deep dark times. Linda Jaivin distils this vast history into a concise narrative that allows us a glimpse of its importance to the formation of China as we see it today. Right now in Australia, we desperately need this sort of understanding.

Linda is the author of twelve books, both fiction and non-fiction. Her novels include A Most Immoral Woman, Eat Me and The Empress Lover, and her non-fiction includes the memoir, The Monkey and the Dragon. She is also a renowned China scholar, working as both a foreign correspondent and translator for both of prose and film (she wrote the sub-titles for Farewell My Concubine, amongst many others).