Bøger af Xiaolu Guo

Life as a film extra in Beijing might seem hard, but Fenfang won't be defeated. She has travelled 1800 miles to seek her fortune in the city, and has no desire to return to the never-ending sweet potato fields back home. Determined to live a modern life, Fenfang works as a cleaner in the Young Pioneer's movie theatre, falls in love with unsuitable men and keeps her kitchen cupboard stocked with UFO instant noodles. As Fenfang might say, Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, isn't it about time I got my lucky break?Longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize.

I Kærlighedens diskurs undersøger Xiaolu Guo aspekter af migration, fremmedgørelse og erindring. Det er som sådan set før, men Xiaolus greb er radikalt anderledes. Det er renset for sentimentalitet, drevet af en nysgerrighed, en vidensbegærlighed og et ønske der ikke så meget handler om egentlig at forstå som om at undersøge og sætte (nye) spørgsmålstegn. Og så gør hun det i konteksten af kærligheden. Stående på ryggen af Roland Barthes (Kærlighedens forrykte tale). Bogen udkommer i Korridors serie af asiatiske værker, som efterhånden har fået en plads i de danske læseres bevidsthed. Ambitionen med serien er at vise et bredt og varieret udsnit af den moderne litteratur der har sit udspring i Asien, og her bidrager Xiaolu Guos bog med en nye vinkel. De kinesiske værker vi hidtil har udgivet, har været blikket indefra. Xiaolu har tilbragt de seneste 20 år i England, og skriver en litteratur der beskæftiger sig med de problematikker, og potentialer, der er knyttet til det at være mellem sprog og mellem kulturer. Ikke som et eksistentielt problem, men snarere som en nysgerrig udforskning af forskelligheder, og det gør hun på en umådelig fin, og nærmest antropologisk, vis.Xiaolu Guo (1973) er opvokset i Kina, men har opholdt sig i London, med afstikkere til Berlin, Zürich og Paris, siden 2002. Som forfatter har hun udgivet noveller, essays, filmkritik, digte og romaner, og har vundet, eller været shortlisted til, flere af de store litteraturpriser. Som dokumentarist og filminstruktør har hendes film ligeledes modtaget flere priser, og de har bl.a. været vist på store filmfestivaler som Sundance, Rotterdam og Venedig. Hun har desuden siddet i juryen til Man Booker Prize og Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

I must work on a ship as a man... Yes, I must seek a new life, more adventurous than that of my fellows on this desolate salt marsh. I must find freedom on the seas. 1843. Ishmaelle is born in a small village on the stormy Kent coast where she grows up swimming with dolphins. After her parents and infant sister die, her brother, Joseph, leaves to find work as a sailor. Abandoned and desperate for a life at sea, Ishmaelle disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York. Call Me Ishmaelle reimagines the epic battle between man and nature in Herman Melville's Moby Dick from a female perspective. As the American Civil War breaks out in 1861, Ishmaelle boards the Nimrod, a whaling ship led by the obsessive Captain Seneca, a Black free man of heroic stature who is haunted by a tragic past. Here, she finds protectors in Polynesian harpooner, Kauri, and Taoist monk, Muzi, whose readings of the I-Ching guide their quest. Through the bloody male violence of whaling, and the unveiling of her feminine identity, Ishmaelle realises there is a mysterious bond between herself and the mythical white whale, Moby Dick. Xiaolu Guo has crafted a dramatically different, feminist narrative that stands alongside the original while offering a powerful exploration of nature, gender and human purpose.

Xiaolu Guo has been lauded as a "voice . . . speaking with full freedom" (Wall Street Journal), which has made her one of the most acclaimed Chinese-born writers of her generation. She is the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Nine Continents and a Granta Best Young British Novelist. Her new memoir, Radical, is an exploration of a city, an electrically honest rendering of what it means to be an outsider, and the sojourn that upended her sense of self as a woman, partner, mother, and artist.The world can seem strange and lonely when you step away from your family and everything you have built for yourself. Yet beauty may also appear. In the autumn of 2019, Guo traveled to New York to take up her position as a visiting professor for a year, leaving her child and partner behind in London. What she experienced, however, amidst excursions throughout the city and time spent on her own, was solitude and a destabilizing of self. Her encounter with American culture and people threatened her sense of identity and threw her into a crisis--of meaning, desire, obligation, and selfhood.Radicals, or bushous, are the building blocks of Chinese characters; they are the "root" from which all words get their meaning. In this feminist lexicon, as she threads together her search for creative and personal freedom, Guo illuminates the integral role language plays in forming our sense of self.Radical is an individual and etymological journey, and an ardent love letter. It is an expression of one artist's fascination with Western culture and her nostalgia for Eastern landscapes, and an attempt to describe the space in between.

**An Observer Book of the Year**The new memoir from prize-winning writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo - playful, provocative and original, it's her deeply personal take on striving for a life of her own'When it comes to spinning light and shadow on the complexities of living, loving and language, Xiaolu Guo is one of the most valuable writers in the world' DEBORAH LEVYThe world can seem strange and lonely when you step away from your family and everything you have tried to call your own. Yet beauty may also appear. In the autumn of 2019 Xiaolu travelled to New York to take up her position as a visiting professor for a year, leaving her child and partner behind in London. The encounter with American culture and people threatens her sense of identity and throws her into a crisis - of meaning, desire, obligation and selfhood.This is a memoir about separation - by continents, by language, and from people. It's about being an outsider and the desperate longing to connect. Xiaolu uses her exploration of language (one of the meanings of the word 'radical' is the graphic component, or root, of Chinese characters), and her own life, to create this unique text. At once a memoir, a dictionary, and an ardent love letter, it is an expression of her fascination with Western culture and her nostalgia for Eastern landscapes, and an attempt to describe the space in between. An archive of an artist's search for creative freedom, it is above all else an intimate account of her efforts to carve out a life of her own.'Radical in angle of attack, smart and brave' IAIN SINCLAIR, author of The Gold Machine

The new memoir from prize-winning writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo - playful, provocative and original, it's her deeply personal take on striving for a life of her own'When it comes to spinning light and shadow on the complexities of living, loving and language, Xiaolu Guo is one of the most valuable writers in the world' DEBORAH LEVYThe world can seem strange and lonely when you step away from your family and everything you have tried to call your own. Yet beauty may also appear. In the autumn of 2019 Xiaolu travelled to New York to take up her position as a visiting professor for a year, leaving her child and partner behind in London. The encounter with American culture and people threatens her sense of identity and throws her into a crisis - of meaning, desire, obligation and selfhood.This is a memoir about separation - by continents, by language, and from people. It's about being an outsider and the desperate longing to connect. Xiaolu uses her exploration of language (one of the meanings of the word 'radical' is the graphic component, or root, of Chinese characters), and her own life, to create this unique text. At once a memoir, a dictionary, and an ardent love letter, it is an expression of her fascination with Western culture and her nostalgia for Eastern landscapes, and an attempt to describe the space in between. An archive of an artist's search for creative freedom, it is above all else an intimate account of her efforts to carve out a life of her own.'Radical in angle of attack, smart and brave' IAIN SINCLAIR, author of The Gold Machine

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.

'It is hard not to be impressed by Guo's vivacious talent' Sunday TimesA story of desire, love and language - and the meaning of home - told through conversations between two loversA Chinese woman comes to London to start a new life, away from her old world.

From one of our most important contemporary Chinese authors: a novel of language and love that tells one young Chinese woman's story of her journey to the Westand her attempts to understand the language, and the man, she adores. Zhuangor ';Z,' to tongue-tied foreignershas come to London to study English, but finds herself adrift, trapped in a cycle of cultural gaffes and grammatical mishaps. Then she meets an Englishman who changes everything, leading her into a world of self-discovery. She soon realizes that, in the West, ';love' does not always mean the same as in China, and that you can learn all the words in the English language and still not understand your lover. And as the novel progresses with steadily improving grammar and vocabulary, Z's evolving voice makes her quest for comprehension all the more poignant. With sparkling wit, Xiaolu Guo has created an utterly original novel about identity and the cultural divide.

Xiaolu Guo meets her parents for the first time when she is almost seven. This book takes Xiaolu from a run-down shack to film school in a rapidly changing Beijing. In 2002 she leaves Beijing on a scholarship to study in Britain. This memoir is a handbook of life lessons.

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. 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...

Longlisted for the Baileys Women's Fiction PrizeIn a flat above a noisy north London market, translator Iona Kirkpatrick starts work on a Chinese letter.

Her world is turned upside down when she sights a UFThing - a spinning plate in the sky - and helps the Westerner in distress whom she discovers in the shadow of the alien craft. And when the Westerner that Kwok Yun saved repays her kindness with a large dollar cheque she becomes a local celebrity, albeit under constant surveillance...

The lovers in the age of indifference are tough romantics from every corner of the planet: a marriage splinters during a game of mah jong;

Life as a film extra in Beijing might seem hard, but Fenfang won't be defeated. Determined to live a modern life, Fenfang works as a cleaner in the Young Pioneer's movie theatre, falls in love with unsuitable men and keeps her kitchen cupboard stocked with UFO instant noodles.

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction Twenty-three-year-old Zhuang (or Z as she calls herself - Westerners cannot pronounce her name) arrives in London to spend a year learning English. Struggling to find her way in the city, and through the puzzles of tense, verb and adverb; she falls for an older Englishman and begins to realise that the landscape of love is an even trickier terrain...Xiaolu Guo was named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists

Village of Stone brilliantly evokes the harshness of life on the typhoon-battered coast of China, where fishermen are often lost to violent seas and children regularly swept away.

Roman fra det moderne Kina.Fra et beskedent bondeliv i en idyllisk, men kvælende kinesisk landsby til Beijings beskidte skønhed. Det er længslen efter ´de skinnende ting´ i livet, der driver den unge pige Fenfang mod storbyen, hvor mulighederne, men også ensomhed og kynisme lurer. Efter en tid med forskelligt lønarbejde opsøger Fenfang Beijings Filmstudier og søger arbejde som statist. Det bliver dagen, hvor hendes skæbnesvangre forvandling finder sted – men ikke helt som hun forestiller sig.En både varm, morsom og usentimental beretning om at være ung - i dagens Kina og i det hele taget.