This remarkable novel tells the moving story

of Han, aged four and the youngest daughter of

an impoverished family. Sold as a slave into the

House of Wu, she quickly forms a close bond

with the young heir, but the idyll of childhood

attachment quickly turns into a nightmare of

frustrated passion as Hart reaches her teens--

beautiful, proud and in love with the young

master. Her life becomes a struggle against

the forces of tradition and tyranny in a world

where lustful male relatives use bondmaids for

indiscriminate pleasure, visiting monks devise

ingenious schemes to combine holy public

duty with unbridled private indulgence, and

gods and goddesses, with careless insouciance,

smile to see the human drama unfold.

Catherine Lira, Singapore s top novelist,

decided to take the risk of self-publishing this

extraordinary book rather than bow to her

publisher s demands to dilute the controversial

and heady story of a young girl sold into slavery

in contemporary Singapore. Her gamble paid

off--The Bondmaid struck a dazzling chord with

readers and became a number-one bestseller in

Singapore and an international sensation, with

editions in six countries. At once a powerful

study of domestic and sexual slavery and a

deeply disturbing and radiantly uplifting story,

The Bondmaid captures the special ethos of a

wealthy and powerful Chinese household in an

era of beauty and brutality and chronicles one

woman s love--right to its astonishing climax.