Village Of Stone

Xiaolu Guo was born in China. She published six books before moving to Britain in 2002. Her books include: Village of Stone, shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize; A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, shortlisted for the Orange Prize; and I Am China. Her recent memoir, Once Upon a Time in the East, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018. It was a Sunday Times Book of the Year. Her most recent novel A Lover's Discourse was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2020. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a visiting professor at the Free University in Berlin.

"A refreshing departure from much of the recent Chinese fiction to reach these shores. The language has the pared-down simplicity of a fable; the effect is a bit like that of a Haruki Murakami novel" Times Literary Supplement "Open this book and you will see a Chinese girl stepping towards you out of China's past and into its present, with all her dreams and striving" -- Xinran "Exquisitely written and intricately contructed" Independent "Reading it is rather like finding yourself in a dream: "once upon a time..." People are going to like this book very much... What could have been a misery of a story has the mysterious charm of a fairy tale or a legend" -- Doris Lessing