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From Publishers Weekly
The Cultural
Revolution of Chairman Mao Zedong altered Chinese history in the
1960s and '70s, forcibly sending hundreds of thousands of Chinese
intellectuals to peasant villages for "re-education." This moving,
often wrenching short novel by a writer who was himself re-educated
in the '70s tells how two young men weather years of banishment,
emphasizing the power of literature to free the mind. Sijie's
unnamed 17-year-old protagonist and his best friend, Luo, are
bourgeois doctors' sons, and so condemned to serve four years in a
remote mountain village, carrying pails of excrement daily up a
hill. Only their ingenuity helps them to survive. The two friends
are good at storytelling, and the village headman commands them to
put on "oral cinema shows" for the villagers, reciting the plots
and dialogue of movies. When another city boy leaves the mountains,
the friends steal a suitcase full of forbidden books he has been
hiding, knowing he will be afraid to call the authorities.
Enchanted by the prose of a host of European writers, they dare to
tell the story of The Count of Monte Cristo to the village tailor
and to read Balzac to his shy and beautiful young daughter. Luo,
who adores the Little Seamstress, dreams of transforming her from a
simple country girl into a sophisticated lover with his foreign
tales. He succeeds beyond his expectations, but the result is not
what he might have hoped for, and leads to an unexpected, droll and
poignant conclusion. The warmth and humor of Sijie's prose and the
clarity of Rilke's translation distinguish this slim first novel, a
wonderfully human tale. (Sept. 17)Forecast: Sijie's debut was a
best-seller and prize winner in France in 2000, and rights have
been sold in 19 countries; it is also scheduled to be made into a
film. Its charm translates admirably strong sales can be expected
on this side of the Atlantic.
内容简介
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is
an enchanting tale that captures the magic of reading and the
wonder of romantic awakening. An immediate international
bestseller, it tells the story of two hapless city boys exiled to a
remote mountain village for re-education during China’s infamous
Cultural Revolution. There the two friends meet the daughter of the
local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in
Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly
devour these banned works, the two friends find transit from their
grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined.
作者简介
Born in China in 1954, Dai Sijie is a filmmaker who was
himself "re-educated" between 1971 and 1974.
He left China in 1984 for France, where he has lived and worked
ever since. This, his first novel, was an overnight sensation when
it appeared in France in 2000, becoming an immediate best-seller
and winning five prizes. Rights to the novel have been sold in
nineteen countries, and it is soon to be made into a film.