Description
Book SynopsisXiaolu Guo was born in China. She published six books before moving to Britain in 2002. Her books include:
Village of Stone, shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize;
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, shortlisted for the Orange Prize; and
I Am China. Her recent memoir,
Once Upon a Time in the East, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018. It was a Sunday Times Book of the Year. Her most recent novel
A Lover's Discourse was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2020. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a visiting professor at the Free University in Berlin.
Trade ReviewWritten in deliberately bad English, this is a wonderful comic romance -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *
An utterly captivating, and disorientating, journey both through language and through love * Independent *
Guo uses her minimalist messed-up prose not just to tell an affecting coming-of-age story but to ask deep questions about the real differences between Chinese and British culture and language * Independent on Sunday *
Funny and charming...more than a love story; its psychology is politically acute, and things noted lightly in it linger in the mind * Guardian *
It is impossible not to be charmed by her matter-of-factness. As the story grows in complexity with Z's growing vocabulary - the narration acquires fluency and tenses almost imperceptibly - it is equally hard not to be impressed by Guo's vivacious talent * Sunday Times *
