Isolationcast #22: Xiaolu Guo

My guest today has had the most phenomenal life. Xiaolu Guo was born in a fishing village in the south of China. She grew up with her grandparents, until she was seven when she went to live with her parents in a communist-era compound. She studied film in Beijing, then moved London in 2002. Five years later her first English Language novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. We talked about all of this - what it was like to grow up in such a unique political climate, finding creativity amidst the uniformity of the communist regime, the process involved in writing in a second language, her success as a film maker - and more. And she explained why she chose to examine a post-Brexit world in her new novel, A Lover's Discourse. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Twitter: @aliceazania Instagram: @aliceazania Buy the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YYXB238/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 Edited by Chelsey Moore

Om Podcasten

The Sunday Salon is a podcast celebrating brilliant books and the women who write them, hosted by journalist Alice-Azania Jarvis. Each week she chats to an inspiring female author about her work, her career, how she writes, what she reads and everything in between. This is not some academic textual analysis – it’s about finding the stories behind the stories. Tune in each Sunday to hear from guests including Isabel Allende, Jessie Burton, Holly Bourne, Diana Evans, Elizabeth Day, Nimco Ali and Sophie Kinsella. Edited by Chelsey Moore.