Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
  • Published: 19 September 2019
  • ISBN: 9781448163106
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 176
Categories:

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Formats & editions
Paperback
5 Apr 2002
EBook
19 Sep 2019
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Here is one of those rare novels, so captivatingly original, so absurdly funny, surprising and moving, that it crosses all boundaries.

1971: Mao's cultural Revolution is at its peak. Two sons of doctors, sent to 're-education' camps, forced to carry buckets of excrement up and down mountain paths, have only their sense of humour to keep them going. Although the attractive daughter of the local tailor also helps to distract them from the task at hand.

The boys' true re-education starts, however, when they discover a hidden suitcase packed with the great Western novels of the nineteenth century. Their lives are transformed. And not only their lives: after listening to the stories of Balzac, the little seamstress will never be the same again.
  • Published: 19 September 2019
  • ISBN: 9781448163106
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 176
Categories:

About the author

Dai Sijie

Born in China in 1954, Dai Sijie is a filmmaker who was himself 're-educated' between 1971 and 1974, and left China in 1984 for France, where he has lived and worked ever since. His first novel, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, was an overnight sensation when it appeared in France in 2000. It became an immediate bestseller and won five prizes. It is now published in over thirty-five countries. His film of the book was chosen to open the Cannes Film Festival in 2002. His second novel, Mr Muo's Travelling Couch, became a bestseller in its first French edition.

portrait photo of Dai Sijie

Also by Dai Sijie

Once on a Moonless Night
Mr Muo's Travelling Couch
See all

Praise for Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

A completely beguiling novel. always giving the reader a sense of being there. Very engaging

Independent

A simple story, seductively told, it touches and lifts up the beauty of human experience far beyond the mountains of Western China in which the story is set

Times Literary Supplement

An enchanting tale from a pernicious period in Chinese history. Sijie has written a jewel of world literature

Spectator

Highly original and sweetly charming

The Times

If you don't read Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, then I'm wasting my time.

Bernard Pivot

If you read only one novel, choose this one: it's worth a hundred

Le Figaro

Wholly delightful, intelligent, funny and unexpected. A remarkable book, offering sheer delight

Scotsman
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