Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth

May 19, 2008
London-based novelist and documentary filmmaker Guo was a 2007 Orange Prize finalist for A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
. She has completely re-written, in English, this story of tough, sprightly heroine Fenfang Wang, first published in 1997 in Mandarin (and earlier this year in a different, U.K.-only English translation). Fenfang, 17, leaves her mother a note and flees her rural farming village for Beijing. An odd job cleaning a movie theater brings her in contact with a low-level director and leads to higher-paying work as a movie extra, where she's a face among thousands. Her affections, stuck between “volatile” producer's assistant Xiaolin and “beloved” American student Ben, do little to lessen the hard knocks, which keep coming. Then, at the suggestion of her friend Huizi, Fenfang gives script writing a go, and things start to change. Guo beautifully captures the sense of a young girl struggling to forge a life. Fenfang's voice is bracing and welcome.

June 1, 2008
Originally published in China and later translated into English, Xiaolu Guo, whose "A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers" was an Orange Prize finalist, has taken her decade-old first publication and reworked the vernacular to produce a new edition of her novel in her own words. The result of this effort is a breezy series of 20 vignettes that loosely tie together the story of 21-year-old Fenfang Wang, who leaves her small rural village at 17 to travel to Beijing in hopes of becoming more than just a factory worker or a peasant harvesting sweet potatoes. Fenfang gets her first break through a chance meeting with an assistant film director while helping him to retrieve his umbrella at the rundown movie theater where she works. What follows are opportunities to work as a film extra at the Beijing Film Studios and her later aspirations to write and sell a script. Xiaolu Guo's own experience as a film writer is clearly noticeable in the detailed yet compact, stylized writing found in this piece. Like the work of Annie Wang ("The People's Republic of Desire") and Wang Ping ("The Last Communist Virgin"), Xiaolu Guo's coming-of-age story provides a modern perspective to the characterization of women in both Chinese society and the literature of today. Larger public and academic libraries may want to consider adding this title.Shirley N. Quan, Orange Cty. P.L.s, Santa Ana, CA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2008
Fenfang has fled the dreariness of her impoverished village in a never-changing land of sweet-potato fields and made the long journey to Beijing. There she copes with wretched little apartments, a violently angry lover, and the viciousness of nosy old neighbors who, resentful of her loveliness and independence, sic the police on her. Cockroaches swarm the walls, while on the street she confronts the great press of humanity, dense smog, corruption, and repression. But things are changing in Beijing, and Fenfang is smart, tough, and funny. She works as a film extra and gets a little break in the role Female Number Three Hundred. Writer and filmmakerGuo, whose A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (2007) was a Orange Prize finalist, is a master of concision, filling each fragment of her alluring and admirable narrators life with irony, anguish, and insight. Once Fenfang recognizes that her loneliness and yearning for dignity and freedom are shared by all, she finds her voice and path to self-expression. A remarkably atmospheric, metaphoric, and piquant novel of personal and cultural metamorphosis.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)