The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Memories of In-yo haunt the items that she left behind. Her request invites the question: what details will she choose to include? And which people will play a prominent role in her story? While Almost Brilliant commits Rabbit’s words to memory, Chih-and therefore the reader-must listen to Rabbit’s story with a discerning ear and determine the truth for themselves. She offers few details about her own life and asks instead for a chance to “do proper honor to those who have died” (p. But even after In-yo’s death, Rabbit continues to hide in the empress’s shadow.

Her position made her privy to many of the empress’s secrets, some of which could undo In-yo’s lifework if revealed. Eager to uncover its secrets, Chih decides to make a detour there, where they learn the compound’s other name, Thriving Fortune-a joke among In-yo’s female attendants, who resented her, but ironically appropriate because of its role in In-yo’s rise to power.Īt Thriving Fortune, Chih meets another ghost of sorts: In-yo’s common-born handmaiden, Rabbit, so called for the size of her two front teeth. Chih and Almost Brilliant happen to be near Lake Scarlet, the haunted site where In-yo held court during her time in exile. On their way to the capital for the new empress’s first Dragon Court, Cleric Chih and their tongue-in-cheek assistant, Almost Brilliant, a neixin with perfect recall and a store of memories passed down through the generations, learn about the declassification of the sites that the recently deceased Empress In-yo had put under imperial lock. Yet some individuals seem more troubled over the untold tales of the dead. Flesh-eating ghosts roam the land in search of prey, the heartbroken turn into animals out of grief, and mischievous fox spirits play tricks on the eyes. In her debut novella, Empress of Salt and Fortune, Vietnamese-American author Nghi Vo delivers an intricate, layered story that explores the interplay between ghosts and memories, gender and power, truth and history.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo