In 1971 Mao's campaign against the intellectuals is at its height. Our narrator and his best friend, Luo, distinctly unintellectual but guilty of being the sons of doctors, have been sent to a remote mountain village to be 'reeducated'. The kind of education that takes place among the peasants of Phoenix Mountain involves carting buckets of excrement up and down precipitous, foggy paths, but the two seventeen-year-olds have a violin and their sense of humour to keep them going. Further distraction is provided by the attractive daughter of the local tailor, possessor of a particularly fine pair of feet. Their true re-education starts, however, when they discover a comrade's hidden stash of classics of great nineteenth-century Western literature - Balzac, Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy and others, in Chinese translation. They need all their ingenuity to get their hands on the forbidden books, but when they do their lives are turned upside down. And not only their lives: after listening to their dangerously seductive retellings of Balzac, the Little Seamstress will never be the same again. Without betraying the truth of what happened, Dai Sijie transforms the bleak events of China's Cultural Revolution into an enchanting and unexpected story about the resilience of the human spirit and the magical power of great storytelling. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstrees - Dai Sijie od authora Dai Sijie a nakladatelství v kategorii Knihy za skvělé ceny na e-shopu Martinus.cz A remarkable story of the resilience of the human spirit, set against the backdrop of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. A funny, moving and brilliantly original novel, which crosses all cultural boundaries with the skill and inventiveness of its storytelling. "If you read only one novel, make it this one" }Le Figaro{. 'A completely beguiling novel. always giving the reader a sense of being there. Very engaging' Independent 20020530