Raise the Red Lantern - Tapa blanda

Tells the story of four concubines competing for the sexual attentions of their master in a 1930s rural clan house. The book explores a world where emotionally stunted men destroy the women in their lives and where the women seem to rise above their surroundings even as they are crushed.

The girl had always been called Taya. Her companion Kort had always been with her. She accepted these things, and why not? They were her world. But Taya wondered why everything she could see beyond the window was so different from all the things inside. She also wondered why the stars never changed if her world was really moving the way her metal friend Kort said it was....Could Kort be wrong? That would be very strange, because Kort knew everything, and he was sure they and the world were moving -- just as she was sure the stars were not. Then one day, when Taya was 12, the World was born anew....

"Pure science fiction....Arthur Clarke, move over". -- Isaac Asimov