A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers by Xiaolu Guo
Language and love collide in this inventive novel of a young Chinese woman's journey to the West and her attempts to understand the language, and the man, she adores. Zhuang (or “Z” to tongue-tied foreigners) has come to London to study English. In London, she finds herself adrift, trapped in a cycle of cultural gaffes and grammatical mishaps. Then she meets an Englishman who changes everything, leading her into a world of self-discovery. She soon realizes that, in the West, “love” does not always mean the same as in China, and that you can learn all the words in the English language and still not understand your lover. As the novel progresses with steadily improving grammar and vocabulary, Z's evolving voice makes her quest for comprehension all the more poignant. With sparkling wit, Xiaolu Guo has created an utterly original novel about identity and the cultural divide.
Find the Book on Amazon
Critical Acclaim for A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
"It is an utterly captivating, and disorienting, journey both through language and through love."
Boyd Tonkin, The Independent
"It is [...] about language, and translation, and the immense difference between thinking in Chinese and thinking in English, and being Chinese and being English [...]. It succeeds in luring the western reader into an alien way of thinking [...]."
Ursula K. LeGuin, The Guardian
About the Author
Xiaolu Guo was born in a fishing village in south China. Her first novel in English, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers was nomnated for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction in 2007. Before moving to London in 2002, Guo studied at the Beijing Film Academy and has pursued film making in addition to her writing career. The author of six books in China, she has been involved in the production, writing, and direction of ten films including the award-winning She, a Chinese and How Is Your Fish Today?.
