Xiaolu Guo Knihy

V bytě nad hlučným tržištěm v severním Londýně se mladá překladatelka Iona Kirkpatricková pouští do překladu čínského dopisu: Nejdražší Mu, slunce tu neúprosně praží. Svinská nebeská výheň. Připadám si prázdný a obnažený. V duši nemám mimo Tvé podoby zhola nic. Píšu Ti z místa, které Ti zatím nemohu prozradit…V detenčním centru v Doveru čeká vyhoštěný čínský hudebník na svůj osud. Jeho pekingská přítelkyně Mu se ho zoufale snaží najít a posílá do Londýna jeden dopis za druhým. Naposledy byli spolu na bouřlivém rockovém koncertu, kde Ťien kraloval pódiu. Jenže pak dovnitř vtrhla policie a odvlekla ho kdoví kam. Ionu jejich složitý příběh plný lásky fascinuje a rozhodne se milence svést zpět k sobě, jenže čas jí utíká pod rukama...

Defiant, humorous and insightful, 'Not Quite Right For Us' pierces through the hierarchical mechanics of class, race, gender. A celebration of outsiderness and an ode to otherness, 'Not Quite Right For Us' is a singular collection of stories, essays and poems by a dynamic mix of established and surging voices alike, edited by Sharmilla Beezmohun.

East goes West – Ein Leben zwischen zwei Welten. Es ist kein einfacher Start ins Leben: Gleich nach der Geburt geben die Eltern, glühende Anhänger Maos, ihre Tochter in die Obhut eines kinderlosen Bauernpaares in den Bergen. Zwei Jahre später bringen diese die halbverhungerte Kleine zu ihren des Lesens und Schreibens unkundigen Großeltern. Ein Jahr später stirbt der Große Vorsitzende, und in China beginnt ein dramatischer gesellschaftlicher Wandel. In ihrem neuen Buch erzählt die chinesische Autorin und Filmemacherin Xiaolu Guo von dem langen Weg, der sie aus einem ärmlichen Fischernest am Ostchinesischen Meer an die Filmhochschule im sich rasant verändernden Peking der 90er Jahre und schließlich 2002 nach London führt. 15 Jahre später beschreibt sie ihre Reise von Ost nach West mit einer Klarsicht, die nur jemand besitzt, der angekommen ist und sich zugleich fremd fühlt.

Xiaolu Guo meets her parents for the first time when she is almost seven. They are strangers to her. When she is born her parents hand her over to a childless peasant couple in the mountains. Aged two, and suffering from malnutrition on a diet of yam leaves, they leave Xiaolu with her illiterate grandparents in a fishing village on the East China Sea. It's a strange beginning. A Wild Swans for a new generation, Once Upon a Time in the East takes Xiaolu from a run-down shack to film school in a rapidly changing Beijing, navigating the everyday peculiarity of modern China- censorship, underground art, Western boyfriends. In 2002 she leaves Beijing on a scholarship to study in Britain. Now, after a decade in Europe, her tale of East to West resonates with the insight that can only come from someone who is both an outsider and at home. Xiaolu Guo's extraordinary memoir is a handbook of life lessons. How to be an artist when censorship kills creativity and the only job you can get is writing bad telenovela scripts. How to be a woman when female babies are regularly drowned at birth and sexual abuse is commonplace. Most poignantly of all- how to love when you've never been shown how.

Set against the backdrop of the 1843 Kent coast, the story follows Ishmaelle, who, after losing her family, disguises herself as a cabin boy to escape her desolate life and seek adventure at sea. As she joins Captain Seneca's whaling ship, the Nimrod, during the tumultuous period of the Civil War, she navigates the brutal world of whaling alongside a diverse crew. This reimagining of Moby Dick from a female perspective explores themes of identity, nature, and the mysterious connection between Ishmaelle and the legendary whale.

"From NBCC-winning author of Nine Continents Xiaolu Guo, Radical is a playful, provocative memoir of a trip to New York that upended her sense of self as a woman, partner, mother, and artist. In the autumn of 2019, Xiaolu Guo traveled to New York to take up a visiting professorship for a year, leaving her child and partner behind in London. The encounter with American culture and people threatened her sense of identity and threw her into a crisis-of meaning, desire, obligation, and selfhood. This is a book about separation-by continents, by language, and from people. It's about being an outsider and the desperate longing to connect. At once a memoir, a lexicon, and an ardent love letter, Radical is an expression of her fascination with Western culture and her nostalgia for Eastern landscapes, and an attempt to describe the space in between"--

'One of the most valuable writers in the world' Deborah LevyEmbodiment, assimilation, integration – these are big words, but they seem to name a stage or a state I ought to be able to achieve in my brief life.In winter 2021, Xiaolu Guo moved into a tiny dilapidated flat on the Hastings seafront, a room of her own where she could spend time writing away from her domestic duties as a mother and wife in London. As Russia invaded Ukraine, she immersed herself in the English landscape and its past, especially the violence between Normans and Saxons.My Battle of Hastings is a chronicle of Xiaolu’s life in Hastings and a portrait of a dislocated artist seeking to connect with her local environment in the hope of finding a deeper connection to her adoptive nation. Filled with profound, beautiful and wry reflections on war, history, migration and belonging, Xiaolu’s journey into the past completes the triptych of memoirs that began with Once Upon a Time in the East, charting her childhood in China, then continued with A Life of My Own in search of a freedom beyond her home.My Battle of Hastings is above all an exploration of how an immigrant, an outsider and a woman can embrace local and national history.

Have you ever tried to learn another language? When Zhuang first arrives in London from China she feels like she is among an alien species. The city is disorientating, the people unfriendly, the language a muddle of personal pronouns and moody verbs. But with increasing fluency in English surviving turns to living. And they say that the best way to learn a language is to fall in love with a native speaker... Selected from the book A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us human Also in the Vintage Minis series: Babies by Anne Enright Depression by William Styron Race by Toni Morrison Home by Salman Rushdie

The memoir chronicles Xiaolu Guo's journey from her humble beginnings in a fishing village in rural China to becoming a bold writer and filmmaker in the West. It explores her experiences, cultural transitions, and the challenges she faced along the way, highlighting her resilience and creativity as she navigates two distinct worlds.