Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, (Paperback)

from gocam

A delightfully dark yet comic gem, eminently readable and like all good dark humour touching on some weighty themes - the cultural revolution provides the backdrop for this tale of two young friends from "liberal bourgeoisie" backgrounds sent to the country for a re-education from which a return ...

from Crazymamie

During the Cultural Revolution in China, two teenage boys whose parents have been labelled "enemies of the people" are sent to a village on the mountain called the Phoenix of the Sky as part of Mao Zedong's re-education campaign. These boys are not brothers, but they are friends. "We were not the...

from nittnut

A quick read. It takes place in China during the Cultural Revolution. Told mostly from the point of view of one character, it tells the story of two boys who are sent out to "become peasants" . They are good friends, and help each other with their work. They both fall in love with a girl from a n...

from richardderus

I don't, like so many others, think this book is brilliant or even particularly original. I do think it's fascinating as a cultural document of a time and a place that I know zero about and find very intriguing. The Cultural Revolution was inconceivably vast, like everything else about China. The...

from Carmenere

During China's Cultural Revolution two young friends, Luo and the narrator, who I believe, remains nameless throughout the story, are taken from their parents to be re-educated by peasants in a mountainous region of China. Although there is only a 3 out of 1,000 chance they will ever be reunited ...