Saga under the title "Imperium łez" (ang. The Empire of Tears) contains two volumes ("Wojna opiumowa" - La Guerre de l’Opium - and "Księżycowy Kamień" - Le sac du Palais d'été - by Jose Freches). These books are about completely unknown story for me of opium wars in mid-19th Century China. You will find many historical annotations here, which are very helpful. In the novel, the author shows how complicated relationships can be, not only in one cultural region (China), but also cross-cultural, in this case - the line between England and China.
We can see the bad side of people from France and Great Britain in 19th century. When they totally don't understand people from China and only want make fortune selling them opium.
Very colourful described characters from China, GB, France, Portugal, Russia and others have very fascinating threads. In this two books we meet a few characters. Initially their stories are described separately and only on further pages their fates begin to cross, pass and connect... But in this book characters are not black-white, maybe only one... the title character from the second volume. They have to make many difficult decisions in very complicated times...
Very seldom I read a book in which the fate of many characters are described and actually there is not one main thread, but there are many. It is very interesting idea! Both the beginning and the ending relate to European journalist describing and drawing extraordinary facts, which used to happened in China.
For me, these books are good base for a film script. Any director think the same? Now I am waiting for a film... ;)
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