Lady Tan’s Circle of Women

See’s (The Island of Sea Women) captivating protagonist, Lady Tan, is based on Doctor Tan Yunxian, whose book of medical cases, published in 1511 when she was 50 years old, was a resource and inspiration for this luminous novel. Living under China’s conservative Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), well-born Yunxian is expected to strictly follow Confucius’s Analects of Women, which exhorts women to adhere to repressive mandates, including “When happy, don’t exult with loud laughter” and “Respectfully serve your father-in-law; do not look at him directly.” Always pushing against the boundaries of gender and class, Yunxian learns medicine from her grandparents and befriends Meiling, who, as the daughter of a midwife (and later, a midwife herself), is considered beneath Yunxian’s social class. Their hard-fought, lifelong friendship, which centers this multilayered novel, gives them the strength to navigate complex familial relationships and pursue the work they love in a society that values women only as producers of men heirs.