A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
Xiaolu Guo
Xiaolu Guo's first novel in (deliberately bad) English is a romantic comedy about two lovers who don't speak each other's language. The heroine is a Chinese girl who has been sent to London to study by her parents.
She calls herself Z because English people can't pronounce her name, but when she arrives at Heathrow she's no better at their language. Set loose to find her way though a confusion of youth hostels, Full English Breakfasts and a lack of the famous London fog, she winds up lodging with a Chinese family in Tottenham, and thinking she might as well not have left home. But then she meets a man who changes everything.
From the moment he smiles at her, she enters a new world of sex, freedom and self-discovery. But she also realizes that, in the West, 'Love' does not always mean the same as in China, and you can learn all the words in the English language and still not understand your man.
