Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Paperback) ~ Sijie Dai... Cover Art

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Paperback)

By: Sijie Dai (Author) and Ina Rilke (Translator)

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Review

"The desires of Dai Sijie's people to expand their intellectual horizons are nicely realized, but several of this brief story's episodes digress to no discernible purpose, failing to either advance its narrative or deepen our understanding of its (more or less generic) characters. Literate and moderately engaging...."

"It isn't a complicated book but its pleasures are considerable. It is written for the most part in a disarmingly candid prose, and its moral--that great literature has a universal power to move--is clearly and joyfully proclaimed."

"[A] worthwhile book, but in many ways an unsatisfactory one. its problem is that the tale is more interesting than the telling. Dai has elected to present his story as a fable rather than a realistic novel, a perfectly respectable choice except that the descriptions of life in this strangest of times and places are so riveting that the reader longs for more. Dai's decision to streamline his narrative, withholding all but the most significant details..., work[s] against the very real power of his material."

Publisher's note

An enchanting literary debut—already an international best-seller.

At the height of Mao’s infamous Cultural Revolution, two boys are among hundreds of thousands exiled to the countryside for “re-education.” The narrator and his best friend, Luo, guilty of being the sons of doctors, find themselves in a remote village where, among the peasants of Phoenix mountain, they are made to cart buckets of excrement up and down precipitous winding paths. Their meager distractions include a violin—as well as, before long, the beautiful daughter of the local tailor.

But it is when the two discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation that their re-education takes its most surprising turn. While ingeniously concealing their forbidden treasure, the boys find transit to worlds they had thought lost forever. And after listening to their dangerously seductive retellings of Balzac, even the Little Seamstress will be forever transformed.

From within the hopelessness and terror of one of the darkest passages in human history, Dai Sijie has fashioned a beguiling and unexpected story about the resilience of the human spirit, the wonder of romantic awakening and the magical power of storytelling.

Annotation

In this novella, set in 1971 China at the height of the Cultural Revolution, two young men have been sent away to the mountains for "reeducation" through hard labor. There they encounter a novel by Balzac--a Western book forbidden under the Mao regime--and it changes their lives and the life of the seamstress with whom one of them falls in love. Among other things, she constructs a brassiere, a piece of lingerie hitherto unknown among the Chinese.

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