Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

In 1971, as Mao's Cultural Revolution swept over China, shutting down universities and banishing "reactionary intellectuals" to the countryside, two teenage boys are sent to live on the remote and unforgiving mountain known as Phoenix in the Sky. Even though the knowledge the narrator and his best friend Luo had acquired in middle school was "precisely nil," they are nevertheless considered dangerous intellectuals and forced to spend their days carrying buckets of excrement up and down the mountain to fertilize the fields. But when they bargain their way into obtaining a forbidden Balzac novel from their friend Four Eyes, a new and dizzyingly vast world opens up to them. Through Balzac, the narrator discovers "awakening desire, passion, impulsive action, love, all the subjects that had, until then, been hidden" [p. 57]. And when Luo falls in love with the beautiful Little Seamstress, life and literature come together in a passionate romance. Luo and the narrator plot to steal Four Eyes' suitcase full of books both for their own pleasure and to transform the seamstress from a simple peasant into a sophisticated woman. Their success in doing so, and the unexpected consequences that follow, drive the novel to its stunning, heart-wrenching conclusion. Part historical novel, part fable, part love story, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a moving testament to the transformative power of literature.

While trying to find the picture, I found that they made a movie out of this book. I'd love to see it. The book is set in post-Cultural Revolution China. The children with high school education or more of the people classed as "enemies of the state" are sent into the rural areas to be re-educated by the peasants. This book follows the story of two young boys, one of which is 'writing' in the first person and his name is never mentioned. The life of re-education is harsh, often brutal and almost utterly without reward. Until, that is, the two boys meet the Little Seamstress and a talent for storytelling no the part of the one gets them out of some of the work. The story is intense and strangely gripping. I say strangely because at first glance this is a simple story about two boys who fall in love with a girl, watch some movies and read some [forbidden] books. It is, however, engaging and so well-written that you can almost smell the sweat and the excrement as they toil up to the fields. You can feel their joy and their pain - and more importantly their confusion in a world they've barely lived in that has branded them dangerous outcasts.

Buy this book online at Amazon, Amazon UK, Kalahari or Loot