Dimensions
130 x 197 x 24mm
Original, impeccably written and incredibly moving, 'The Teahouse Fire' is a wonderful debut novel in the vein of 'Memoirs of a Geisha'.
Set in the late nineteenth century at a turning point in Japan's relationship with the western world, 'The Teahouse Fire' is the story of Aurelia, a young French-American girl who, after the death of her mother, finds herself lost and alone in Japan and in need of a new family. Knowing only a few words of Japanese she hides in a tea house and is adopted but he family who owns it: gradually falling in love with both the tea ceremony and with her young mistress, Yukato.
As Aurelia grows up she devotes herself to the family and its failing fortunes in the face of civil war and western intervention, and to Yukato's love affairs and subsequent marriage. But her feelings for her mistress are never reciprocated and as tensions mount in the household Aurelia begins to realise that to the world around her she will never be anything but a foreigner.
Like 'Memoirs of a Geisha', 'The Teahouse Fire' is an utterly convincing recreation of a now lost world and a fascinating insight into the intricacies and intimacies of the tea ceremony.
