Xi Wangmu

Goddess. Sorceress. Bringer of plague. Keeper of the peaches of immortality.

For four thousand years, one figure has haunted the Chinese imagination-and almost no one in the West knows her name.

She first appears in the oracle bones of the Shang dynasty, dealing death and blessing with the same hand. In the ancient Classic of Mountains and Seas she has tiger's teeth and a leopard's tail. By the Han dynasty she reigns from a jade palace atop Mount Kunlun, guarding the peaches of eternal life and receiving emperors who climb to beg her favor. Tang poets write to her across an impossible distance. In Journey to the West, her stolen peaches set the adventure in motion. And in the temples of Taiwan today, worshippers still light incense and call her name.

Who was she-and how did a terrifying spirit from the oldest written records become the supreme goddess of the Daoist heavens?

Across four millennia of history, scripture, and folklore, this book follows Xi Wangmu through every transformation: shamanka and sovereign, healer and destroyer, wilderness demon and Immortal Mother.

One goddess. Four thousand years. A history the West forgot-and is only now beginning to read.