Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

"This novel offers a refreshing and unexpected take on the Cultural Revolution. Rather than dwelling on trauma, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress tells a gentle, bittersweet story of awakening — intellectual, sexual and emotional. It’s about how literature can open a window to the world and, more importantly, to the self. The Seamstress starts as a naïve village girl, but when two ‘sent-down’ youths secretly introduce her to forbidden Western novels, something shifts. Through Balzac and Flaubert, she begins to imagine a life beyond her narrow mountain village. It’s a beautiful metaphor for liberation. Yes, Dai Sijie was sent to a village in Sichuan, his home province, to work as a ‘sent-down’ youth. The novel was indeed inspired by his own experience. He later went to France to study. I find it particularly interesting how many Chinese-born writers living abroad, like Dai Sijie, create works that are more accessible to Western readers. This novel, while firmly rooted in the Chinese countryside, speaks to universal themes: desire, freedom and transformation. The tone is charming, nostalgic and quietly radical. It doesn’t shout; it sings. And at its core, it reminds us that books are more than paper and ink — they are vessels of possibility, escape, and reinvention. Writing in a different language often brings about fresh perspectives. Samuel Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot in French , then translated it into English. In her memoir In Other Words , Jhumpa Lahiri reflects on her journey of learning Italian, and how she feels a sense of freedom writing in it. Writers choose or reject languages for different reasons. In a poignant essay titled “ To Speak Is to Blunder ”, my fellow Chinese-born writer Yiyun Li describes how she “disowned” her mother tongue as a way to detach herself from certain cultural and emotional burdens. I like her work very much, by the way. Ha Jin is another Chinese who writes in English, and I really enjoyed his novel Waiting . For me, English represents hope. At 16, I was taken out of school by my family and put to work in a rocket factory. Bored to death while greasing machine parts, I decided to teach myself English as a means of escape. My only sanctuary within the factory compound was a rubbish dump around the corner from my workshop. Whenever I could, I would go there to study. Amid the buzzing flies and the stench rising from rotten food, I could feel my horizons expanding. English changed my life, and my adopted language allowed me to explore and express thoughts and ideas in ways that Chinese didn’t always permit. As I mentioned, I find that the books of some Chinese writers who live abroad are much more palatable for international readers. For example, almost all writers inside China use the omniscient point of view, which I personally find very awkward. Whereas the writers who live overseas know the storytelling from both in and outside China, and they know how to tell the story using the best techniques, so they can take the best from both Chinese and Western traditions. Liu Sola wrote a novella in 1985 called You Have No Choice, which totally broke the storytelling tradition — there is no obvious plot line. It is an avant-garde landmark in Chinese literature, about a group of young music students and their search for authenticity and self-expression in a rapidly changing society. A literary friend recommended this novella to me when I was still working at my rocket factory. I read in one go — I couldn’t put it down because it is so refreshing, original and different. It also marks the rise of female voices breaking patriarchal and ideological confines. Eileen Chang ’s stories from the 1940s are very good. I think she was very insightful, especially about the relationship between men and women, even though her insight didn’t free her from the pain she suffered at the hands of lovers. I also used to be a huge fan of San Mao but I don’t like her anymore. When I was young, I was fascinated by her account of living in the Sahara desert with her Spanish husband. At that time there was no way I could travel, so her exotic world and romantic escapades fascinated me. There are many other 20th century female Chinese authors worth mentioning, for example Tie Ning, Zhang Jie and Ding Ling. I am revising a historical novel inspired by Qiu Jin, China’s first feminist and revolutionary — one of the most colourful and compelling figures in modern Chinese history. She loved to cross-dress, rode through town on her white horse, practised martial arts, and drank like a fish. And I am writing a novel about love and parenthood, what love means. It’s mostly set in China but the main characters are non-Chinese."