REVIEW: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Dai Sijie)
Author: Dai Sijie
My rating: 4/5
Premise: In this enchanting tale about the magic of reading, two city boys are exiled to a remote mountain village for reeducation during China's infamous Cultural Revolution. There they meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, they find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined.
I studied the film of this book as part of my Chinese A-Level, so I know the plot well and used to be able to dissect the themes at the drop of a hat 😂 I love that this book is semi-autobiographical. It just adds a more personal level to the story, making you think "oh wait, this was how people lived". The main theme throughout the novel is the power of books and thought - how the seamstress' life is changed by books. It was through this book that I started reading Balzac's work and now he's a favourite author of mine! If you want a book about life during China's cultural revolution, this could be a good one to ease you in - it gives you a flavour of the struggle in that era, but it's not as heavy as some other books like White Swans. A very nice read.