Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth
A Novel
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The latest novel from Orange Prize finalist Xiaolu Guo is the enchantingly comic story of a young Chinese woman's life as a film extra in hyper-modern, tumultuous Beijing.Though twenty-one-year-old Fenfang Wang has traveled 1,800 miles to seek her fortune in urban Beijing, she is ill-prepared for what greets her: a Communist regime that has outworn its welcome, a city in slap-dash development, and a sexist attitude more in keeping with her peasant upbringing than the country's progressive capital. But after mastering the fever and tumult of the city, Fenfang ultimately finds her true independence in the one place she never expected.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
London-based novelist and documentary filmmaker Guo was a 2007 Orange Prize finalist for A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. She has completely re-written, in English, this story of tough, sprightly heroine Fenfang Wang, first published in 1997 in Mandarin (and earlier this year in a different, U.K.-only English translation). Fenfang, 17, leaves her mother a note and flees her rural farming village for Beijing. An odd job cleaning a movie theater brings her in contact with a low-level director and leads to higher-paying work as a movie extra, where she's a face among thousands. Her affections, stuck between "volatile" producer's assistant Xiaolin and "beloved" American student Ben, do little to lessen the hard knocks, which keep coming. Then, at the suggestion of her friend Huizi, Fenfang gives script writing a go, and things start to change. Guo beautifully captures the sense of a young girl struggling to forge a life. Fenfang's voice is bracing and welcome.
