Imperial intrigue in China as seen by a eunuch

"Did you know that there were eunuchs in 19th-century China who were married and had children?" asks British author Edward Rutherfurd.

The 72-year-old is talking excitedly about his favourite character - in a very extensive roster of characters - in his ninth novel, China.

Rutherfurd's particular brand of historical fiction examines a single place over decades, sometimes centuries, through the eyes of multiple interlinked characters.

This began with his best-selling 1987 debut novel Sarum, set in his birthplace of Salisbury, England, where the ancient monument of Stonehenge is located. It spans 10,000 years from the Ice Age to the present day.

Rutherfurd, the pen name of Francis Edward Wintle, has covered Russia, in his second novel Russka (1991); London (1997), New York (2009) and Paris (2013), but this is his first foray into Asia.

He has been fascinated by China since he was 12 and received a book about it from his godfather.

He spent decades contemplating setting a novel there without the slightest idea of how to go about it. Then, about five years ago, he fell ill.

"I got pneumonia," he says over Zoom from his home in the United States. "My doctor told me I must stop all work, otherwise - to use his words - 'I won't answer for you'."

He recovered but, still feeling fragile, decided to retire from writing. Instead, he took a trip to China and spent five weeks there.

"William Wordsworth, the great poet, talks about the making of a poem as emotion recollected in tranquillity," he says.

After he returned, the pieces fell into place for a new novel.

China is an epic that starts in 1839 and runs through the 19th century, covering the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion and the reign of the infamous Cixi, who rose from concubine to de facto ruler of the country for 47 years.

The book provides an unusual perspective on the controversial empress dowager - that of the eunuch who does her nails. Dubbed Lacquer Nail, he is a married man who, after losing his job as a lacquer artisan, makes a drastic career shift and gets castrated.

Lacquer Nail grows close to Cixi, witnesses historical events such as the burning of the Summer Palace by British troops in 1860 and becomes enmeshed in court intrigue. "I had such fun with that guy," recalls Rutherfurd.

His novel is peopled with a colourful cast - rebels and pirates; civil servants and concubines; soldiers and opium traders; Han Chinese, Manchu and British.

Rutherfurd is aware that with the Opium Wars between Britain and China, he is treading on factious ground, especially as a British writer.

"The British were drug dealers," he says matter-of-factly.

That said, he believes in creating "human characters who aren't just villains but real people", who are nevertheless capable of doing terrible things and finding ways to justify them.

One of his characters, John Trader, is a young Englishman who enters the opium business as a get-rich-quick scheme so he can marry the woman he loves.

At 765 pages, China is on the slimmer end of the Rutherfurd spectrum - his novels typically run to more than 800 pages.

The writer, who is married with two children in their 30s, was working in publishing in the 1980s when he decided to have a go at writing in the tradition of historical fiction greats like James Michener, famed for epic family sagas such as Hawaii (1959) and Alaska (1988).

He says: "I thought, if we're going to succeed, we better try and knock them dead. If you want to do anything, think big."

He did so literally - Sarum clocks in at more than 1,000 pages.

The received wisdom at the time was that long books did not sell. Rutherfurd, a believer in going against the market - "not too early, because then you're scuppered, but when it's becoming mature" - defied expectations when Sarum spent 23 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

He writes his doorstoppers, he says, through "vast aggression".

"Laurence Olivier, the great actor, even to the end of his long and distinguished career, was so nervous that at the start of the play each night, there was a man who stood in the wings and pushed him onstage.

"You have to use an enormous amount of nervous and emotional energy. It takes a lot out of you. But you have to channel that."