“Born a commoner, became a concubine, and died as China’s only female Emperor.”
Buy the book (free shipping in Aust/US): https://queeniechan.com/shop/
Read sample: https://queeniechan.com/history/wuzetian/
NB. For #WHM, I also did a guest post on this series for Gillian Pollack.
“Women History Month” may highlight lots of historical women, but we are all limited in our celebration by who we have heard of, rather than who is actually out there. “Famous queens” may be a perennially popular subject, but there are still many capable female rulers out there who are household names in their own culture only, and are rarely known outside of them. Wu Zetian is one such personage–there probably isn’t a Chinese child who doesn’t know who she is, but mention her name outside her nation and you’re more likely to be met with blank stare.
Not that she doesn’t have the tendency to appear in unexpected places. As a child who immigrated to Australia as a child, my first exposure to Australian television was actually not anything in English on the commercial channels, but through a Hong Kong-produced TV serial on the life of Wu on SBS. Having been ripped from my place of birth and plonked into a country where I couldn’t speak the language, I found myself glued to the TV every Wednesday, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Cantonese-speaking wonder woman and alleviate the awful homesickness I was feeling at the time.
I walked away from those difficult times with a healthy appreciation of Wu as a historical outlier, but it wasn’t until decades later that I was able to do her life justice by writing and illustrating a graphic novel biography about her. As part of a Masters of Research thesis at MQU (which received a high distinction), I was able to render her story in full technicolour glory, and make her book #2 in my well-received historical biography series “Women Who Were Kings” (Ages 10+). Along the way, I got to correct many of the historical inaccuracies regarding her life, whether it’s from condescending Confucian scholars, or from TV producers looking to exploit sexual scandal and violence.
When I finished the graphic novel “Wu Zetian: Women Who Were Kings” #2, Chinese people swooped down on it at cons. A few non-Asians also expressed interest, which was an unexpected and pleasant surprise–if Hatshepsut #1 proved that people were interested in politically powerful women, Wu Zetian #2 proved that people need not have heard of the queen before to be interested. As before – the book is now available to be ordered from Scholastic (for schools) and James Bennett/ALS (for libraries).
Naturally, a book #3 will be forthcoming. This next queen is certainly one that everyone has heard of, and for those interested, you can follow me and the results of my journey here on my blog.
