A Song to Drown Rivers

Xishi is the protagonist of the novel and is based on the legend of Xi Shi, one of the Four Great Beauties of Ancient China, famous for being so beautiful that they changed the fates of their countries. Traditional stories of Xi Shi sometimes cast her as a duplicitous spy, but in A Song to Drown Rivers, Xishi is a thoughtful, compassionate, and brave hero. While she hates the Wu and their king at the beginning of the novel, her inherently honest nature forces her to see the good in the man she is plotting against. When her actions bring about the downfall of the Wu kingdom, she sees that her enemies are just as human and capable of pain as she.

Jiang uses first-person narration to portray her protagonist as a morally good human who agrees to an uncharacteristic role out of the pain she feels over the loss of her sister during the Wu invasion. This first-person point of view is important, as it allows Xishi to tell her own story, counteracting the misogynistic stereotypes that often apply to female spies—including in legends of Xi Shi.

The relationship between Xishi and Fanli alludes to the Greek myth of Pygmalion, found in Ovid’s

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