A Quick Guide to "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress"

By Students' Academy

The story of the novel revolves around two youths from city. They are sent to a mountain village to be re-educated while the Cultural Revolution in China was going on.

The setting of the novel and most of the details in the novel are inspired by Dai’s own life, but the plot of the novel is fictional.

Dai was born in Chengdu, and so are the two boys. The author was also sent to a mountain village to be re-educated at the age of seventeen though he was from a very modest origin. He was the son of a tailor. He got a stolen suitcase full of Chinese translations of Sigmund Freud’s work. He took the help of those texts to understand the minds of the villagers.

A Quick Guide to "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress"
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Characters
Chapter Three: Plot Overview
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Part I
Part II
Part III
Chapter Five: Thematic Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Aug 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301212477

Students' Academy

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A Quick Guide to Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Students' Academy

Copyright

A Quick Guide to Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Students' Academy

Copyright@2013 Students' Academy

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Chapter One: Introduction

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress was the first novel written by Dai Sijie. It was first published in the year 2000.

Though Chinese is the mother tongue of Dai, he wrote his first novel in French which is his second language.

The story of the novel revolves around two youths from city. They are sent to a mountain village to be re-educated while the Cultural Revolution in China was going on.

The setting of the novel and most of the details in the novel are inspired by Dai’s own life, but the plot of the novel is fictional.

Dai was born in Chengdu, and so are the two boys. The author was also sent to a mountain village to be re-educated at the age of seventeen though he was from a very modest origin. He was the son of a tailor. He got a stolen suitcase full of Chinese translations of Sigmund Freud’s work. He took the help of those texts to understand the minds of the villagers.

In the novel, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress Luo and the unnamed narrator steal a suitcase full of classic novels.

When the book was published in Europe and North America, it was very well received and it sold well. The novel received numerous positive reviews.

Thought forty to fifty thousand copies of the book were sold in China, it was not considered as a successful book there.

When the Chinese officials complained that the book wrongly portrays the re-education and the Cultural Revolution, the book was banned in China.

Before writing this novel, Dai had already directed many films. In the year 2002, he adapted Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress to a film.

The film was quite successful and both the audience and critics gave positive reviews. Actually, Dai had wanted to film the movie at the mountain where he as re-education, but the location was too difficult for the