Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

First edition in English. 8vo. Pp. [iv], 172. Maroon cloth boards, lettered in silver to spine; crimson endpapers. Jacket photograph by Mark Pennington.

Hint of toning to textblock edges, else Fine.

Translated from the original French Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise by Ina Rilke.

Winner of the Club Med International Book Award. Two young men find hope and inspiration in a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation when sentenced to the countryside for "re-education" during Mao's Cultural Revolution.

Dai Sijie is a filmmaker who was himself "re-educated" between 1971 and 1974. This, his first novel, was an immediate best-seller when it appeared in France in 2000 by Éditions Gallimard, with publication rights sold in twenty-five countries. A Franco-Chinese film adaptation directed by Dai and starring Zhou Xun, Chen Kun and Liu Ye, was premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. "[The novel] emphasize[s] the power of literature to free the mind." –Jeff Zaleski, Publishers Weekly