SIJIE, Dai 1954-

PERSONAL: Born 1954, in Fujian, China; immigrated to France, 1984.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Knopf Publishing, 299 Park Ave., 4th Fl., New York, NY 10171.

CAREER: Film director and writer. Director of films, such as Le temple de la montagne, 1984, Chine, ma douleur, 1989, and La mangeur de lune, 1994.

AWARDS, HONORS: Prix Jean Vigo, 1989, for Chine, ma douleur; special jury prize, Prague Film Festival, 1994, for La mangeur de lune.

WRITINGS:

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (originally published as Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise), translation by Ina Rilke, Knopf (New York, NY), 2001.

(And director) Le Onzième (also known as The Eleventh Child), Max Films (Montreal, QC, Canada), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Dai Sijie's novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress tells the story of two teenagers who are sent to a remote mountain village in China. Their families are in disgrace, and the boys are to be "re-educated" with ideas and attitudes that are acceptable to the Communist Party's Cultural Revolution. The villagers are not welcoming to the boys, and the narrator gets in trouble because he has a violin, which the villagers think is some kind of toy. When he explains that it is a musical instrument, the villagers want to destroy it as a symbol of capitalism. The two boys lie, saying the violin is acceptable to the Communists, and to "prove" this they play a Mozart sonata, which they say is titled "Mozart Is Thinking of Chairman Mao."

Sentenced to hard labor in the village, the boys have to carry around human and animal manure to fertilize the mountain fields. One spark of hope lightens their existence: the village headman assigns them to go to another village to watch movies and then come home and tell him the stories they've seen. Their storytelling skills are their key to a tolerable existence in the village.

On another trip outside their little village, they meet a beautiful but uneducated seamstress, and the narrator's friend Luo falls in love with her. When they discover that an old friend has a supply of forbidden Western literature, the boys steal the books so they can read them to the seamstress and thus win her love. Although the boys gain hope from the books' stories of free people, the stories also make them chafe even more at their imprisonment in the re-education camp; it is a mixed blessing, and may not leave them better off in the long run.

In the San Francisco Chronicle, David Wiegand wrote that Sijie, like the boys, was sent to a Chinese reeducation camp in the 1970s, and noted that the book "brilliantly reflects [Dai Sijie's] Chinese upbringing and his more recent understanding of Western culture and literature." Michael Dirda wrote in the Washington Post, "This is a funny, touching, sly and altogether delightful novel, an older man's 'memoir' of some episodes in his youth that fundamentally altered his life." In the London Times, Alex Clark called Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress "a highly original and sweetly charming tale, despite its grim subject matter." A Publisher's Weekly reviewer wrote, "The warmth and humor of Sijie's prose and the clarity of Rilke's translation distinguish this slim first novel, a wonderfully human tale." In the Spectator, Paul Tebbs called the novel "a jewel of world literature."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 2001, Elsa Gaztambide, review of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, p. 196.

Boston Herald, October 21, 2001, p. 49.

Christian Science Monitor, February 5, 1993, David Sterritt, review of Chine, ma douleur, p. 14.

Economist, August 11, 2001, "From Mainland to Mainstream."

French Review, May, 2001, Nathalie Cornelius, review of Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise, p. 1285.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2001, review of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, p. 1046.

New York Times, March 19, 1990, Caryn James, review of Chine, ma douleur, p. C17; January 29, 1993, Caryn James, review of Chine, ma douleur, p. C6; October 18, 2001, Alan Riding, "Adopting a Country, then Crashing its Best-seller List," p. E2.

New York Times Book Review, September 16, 2001, Brooke Allen, "A Suitcase Education," p. 24.

Publishers Weekly, August 27, 2001, review of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, p. 51.

San Francisco Chronicle, October 28, 2001, David Wiegand, "Painful truths," p. 3.

Spectator, June 30, 2001, p. 43.

Sunday Times (London, England), July 15, 2001, p. 44.

Times (London, England), June 23, 2001, Francis Gilbert, "Culture Shock," p. 20.

Times Literary Supplement, July 20, 2001, Justin Hill, "The Teller of Films," p. 22.

Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2001, Jamie James, review of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, p. W13.

Washington Post, September 9, 2001, Michael Dirda, review of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, p. T15.*