A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

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Description

What happens when a Chinese girl adrift in Britain falls for an Englishman adrift in life- a funny, sexy, romantic novel. Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2007. Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction Twenty-three-year-old Zhuang (or Z as she calls herself - Westerners cannot pronounce her name) arrives in London to spend a year learning English. Struggling to find her way in the city, and through the puzzles of tense, verb and adverb; she falls for an older Englishman and begins to realise that the landscape of love is an even trickier terrain... Xiaolu Guo was named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists

Reviews

Written 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 *

Author Bio

Xiaolu Guo was born in south China. She studied at the Beijing Film Academy and published six books in China before moving to London in 2002. Her books include Village of Stone which was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth which was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, and I Am China which was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Her recent memoir, Once Upon a Time in the East, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award, the Jhalak Prize and the Rathbones Folio Award 2018, and was a Sunday Times Book of the Year. In 2013 Xiaolu was named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. She has directed several award-winning films including She, A Chinese, and documentaries about China and Britain. She was a judge for the Booker Prize in 2019, and is currently a visiting professor at Columbia University in New York.