Read A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers Online
Authors: Xiaolu Guo
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #Dictionary
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Rebecca Carter, Claire Paterson, Beth Coates, Alison Samuel, Rachel Cugnoni, Suzanne Dean, Toby Eady, Clara Farmer, Juliet Brooke, Audrey Brooks, Nan Talese, Lorna Owen, and all the others who have followed this book on its journey.
Xiaolu Guo
A Concise Chinese–English Dictionary
for Lovers
Xiaolu Guo was born in the Zhe Jiang province of southern China. After graduating from the Beijing Film Academy, she wrote several books published in China. She has written and directed award-winning documentaries, including
The Concrete Revolution
; her first feature film,
How Is Your Fish Today?
, was an Official Selection at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 International Women’s Film Festival. Since 2002 she has been dividing her time between London and Beijing.
ALSO BY XIAOLU GUO
Village of Stone
(translated from the Chinese)
Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth
Praise for Xiaolu Guo’s
A Concise Chinese–English Dictionary
for Lovers
“By turns hilarious and poignant. Xiaolu Guo has given us a fresh and bittersweet addition to the literature of cultural displacement.”
—
The Oregonian
“Funny and charming…more than a love story; its psychology is politically acute, and things noted lightly in it linger in the mind.”
—
The Guardian
(London)
“Xiaolu Guo has written an inventive, often humorous and poignant story of a woman’s journey over cultural and emotional borders.”
—Gail Tsukiyama,
Ms. Magazine
“Xiaolu Guo’s novel, her first in English, is smartly absorbing. Grade: A”
—
Entertainment Weekly
“
A Concise Chinese–English Dictionary for Lovers
cleverly courts our assumptions about the chasm between Chinese and Western cultures, only to upend them. It is an utterly captivating, and disorientating, journey both through language and through love.”
—
The Independent
(London)
“As absorbing as a peek into a diary.”
—
The San Diego Union-Tribune
“It is impossible not to be charmed by Xiaolu Guo’s matter-of-factness…. It is equally hard not to be impressed by Guo’s vivacious talent.”
—
The Sunday Times
(London)
“
A Concise Chinese–English Dictionary for Lovers
is original, humorous, and wise. Within imperfect language one can find many perfect truths of the human condition. The misunderstandings are really the understandings of the differences of the heart between men and women.”
—Amy Tan, author of
The Joy Luck Club
“Xiaolu Guo is a fabulous writer, fresh, witty, and intelligent. She handles language in an astonishing way. I don’t think I have enjoyed a book as much in the last twelve months.”
—Joanne Harris, author of
Chocolat
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, JUNE
2008
Copyright © 2007 by Xiaolu Guo
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus, an imprint of Random House Group Ltd., London, and subsequently published in hardcover in the United States by Nan A. Talese, an imprint of The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2007.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher gratefully accepts permission from Alfred Publishing Co., Inc., to quote from “The Rose” by Amanda McBroom, © 1977 (Renewed) Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. and Third Story Music, Inc. All Rights Administered by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.
Dictionary definitions reproduced from Collins English Dictionary—Pocket Edition, with the permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2005.
“Just the Two of Us,” words and music by Ralph MacDonald, William Salter, and Bill Withers, copyright © 1980 Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc. (ASCAP), Antisia Music, Inc. (ASCAP), and Bleunig Music (ASCAP). Worldwide Rights for Antisia Music, Inc., administered by Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Nan A. Talese/Doubleday edition as follows: Guo, Xiaolu, 1973–
A concise Chinese-English dictionary for lovers / Xiaolu Guo. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Chinese students—Great Britain—Fiction. 2. English language—Study and teaching—Fiction. 3. Intercultural communication—Fiction. I. Title.
PR9450.9.G86C66 2007
823'.92—dc22 2007003118
eISBN: 978-0-307-45563-5
v3.0