Mandarin (novel)
Encyclopedia
Mandarin is a lengthy Robert Elegant
novel
published by Simon & Schuster
in 1983. It is set in China
during the Taiping Rebellion
.
Robert Elegant
Robert Sampson Elegant is a British-American author and journalist born in New York City. He spent many years in Asia as a journalist. The Asian settings of all but one of his novels reflect that experience. He covered both the Korean and the Vietnam Wars, as well as four or five lesser conflicts...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
published by Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
in 1983. It is set in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
during the Taiping Rebellion
Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, who, having received visions, maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty...
.
Characters
- Saul Haleevie - an Orthodox rabbi and ShanghaiShanghaiShanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
silk merchant. - Sarah - Saul's worrisome wife.
- Fronah - Saul and Sarah's daughter.
- Aisek Lee - a Chinese silk merchant and partner of Saul Haleevie born into JudaismJudaismJudaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
. He becomes imprisoned and Saul, Aaron, and David try to bribe government officials to get him out of prison. - Aaron - Aisek's son.
- David - Aisek's son.
- Lionel - Fronah's first husband, who becomes an opiumOpiumOpium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
addict and dies. - Gabriel Hyde - Fronah's second husband, who has a Jewish mother.
- Yenehala - ambitious, clever, and beautiful concubine who manipulates the corrupt emperor into having his first child by her.