PRAISE FOR A LOVER'S DISCOURSE
"Unlike Roland Barthes' book by the same name, Xiaolu Guo's A Lover's Discourse is a love story as a genuine dialogue, not only between lovers, but between languages, cultures, and philosophies. Swift, astute, and funny, the novel explores large and urgent questions about the familiar and the alien, the original and the copy, and the blur between and metamorphoses from one to the other. The narrative magic lies in the fact that the although the tale flies high, it never leaves the ground of the everyday, the particular, sometimes messy, reality of the book's me and you–two travelers who struggle to make a home somewhere between them."–Siri Hustvedt, author of Memories of the Future
"A fiercely intelligent book whose exploration of the philosophy of identity is trenchant and moving."–Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"The problems [Guo] treats–alienation, displacement, borders–repeat like memories across her work . . . Guo's English, with its deliberate missteps, its open confusion, and its pockets of cold, ... captures a certain kind of alienation that people feel when being forced to communicate in a language that isn't native to them."–New York Review of Books
PRAISE FOR XIAOLU GUO
"The novels confirmed Guo, who is also a film-maker, as an astute and challenging innovator, slipping between word and image, documentary and fiction, as restlessly as between languages."–Guardian on A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
"Xiaolu Guo's literary voice remains a breath of the freshest air imaginable."–The Independent (UK) on A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
"Gripping . . . In evocative, captivating prose that reads like fiction, Guo brings to life her lifelong struggles against the chains of poverty, gender, and censorship . . . A rich and insightful coming-of-age story of not only a woman, but of an artist and the country in which she was born."–Kirkus Reviews on Nine Continents
"A memoir to compare with Wild Swans for a new generation . . . Utterly compelling . . . The book is often shocking in its descriptions of violence and deprivation, but Guo also writes with wry humour . . . She writes superbly about her struggle to escape the constraints of gender, poverty and state interference. This extraordinary memoir will enhance her burgeoning reputation."–Ian Critchley, Sunday Times (UK) on Nine Continents