{"title":"Xiaolu Guo","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eXiaolu Guo\u003c\/strong\u003e crafts narratives that blend rich cultural landscapes with intimate explorations of identity, migration, and memory. Her works range from evocative historical fiction to poignant personal memoirs, offering a diverse tapestry of voices and experiences. Readers can expect finely wrought stories that traverse places and times, marked by lyrical prose and emotional depth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith titles spanning \u003cem\u003eGeneral Fiction\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eHistorical Fiction\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eTravel \u0026amp; Adventure\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eBiography \u0026amp; Memoir\u003c\/em\u003e, Guo’s writing invites reflection on the intersections of East and West, past and present. Her books often illuminate the complexities of belonging and the power of storytelling itself.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"20-fragments-of-a-ravenous-youth-by-xiaolu-guo-9781784877446","title":"20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMeet ten of literature's most iconic heroines, jacketed in bold portraits by female photographers from around the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth\u003c\/em\u003e tells the story of Fenfang, who is determined to carve out a life more independent than her provincial roots. She secures a job as a film extra in Beijing, but living a modern life is not as easy as it appears in this tumultuous, messy city.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGrappling with the narrow world of cinema, an outworn Communist regime, and the city's far-from-progressive attitudes toward women, the charismatic Fenfang finds her true freedom in the one place she never expected.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth\u003c\/em\u003e is a sparkling and wry coming-of-age story about the changing identity of women in contemporary China.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46271874466028,"sku":"9781784877446","price":24.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781784877446.jpg?v=1742260894"},{"product_id":"my-battle-of-hastings-by-xiaolu-guo-9781784745370","title":"My Battle of Hastings","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe new memoir in a triptych from prize-winning writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo, in which she moves to Hastings to find a room of her own and immerses herself in local history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'One of the most valuable writers in the world' - Deborah Levy\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMy Battle of Hastings\u003c\/em\u003e is an exploration of how an immigrant, an outsider, and a woman can embrace local and national history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn winter 2021, Xiaolu Guo moved into a tiny dilapidated flat on the Hastings seafront, a room of her own where she could spend time writing away from her domestic duties in London. As Russia invaded Ukraine, she immersed herself in the English landscape and its past, especially the violence between Normans and Saxons.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMy Battle of Hastings\u003c\/em\u003e is a chronicle of Xiaolu's life in Hastings and a portrait of a dislocated artist seeking to connect with her local environment in the hope of finding a deeper connection to her adoptive nation. Filled with profound, beautiful, and wry reflections on war, history, migration, and belonging, Xiaolu's journey into the past completes the triptych of memoirs that began with \u003cem\u003eOnce Upon a Time in the East\u003c\/em\u003e, charting her childhood in China, then continued with \u003cem\u003eRadical - A Life of My Own\u003c\/em\u003e in search of a freedom beyond her home.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46374860947692,"sku":"9781784745370","price":41.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781784745370.jpg?v=1744848688"},{"product_id":"once-upon-a-time-in-the-east-by-xiaolu-guo-9781784702946","title":"Once Upon A Time in the East","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA memoir of growing up in modern China from the Orange-shortlisted and Granta Best Young British Novelist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWinner of the National Book Critics Circle Award\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eShortlisted for the Costa Biography Award\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eShortlisted for the Jhalak Prize\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eShortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eA Sunday Times Book of the Year\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eXiaolu Guo meets her parents for the first time when she is almost seven. They are strangers to her.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen she is born in 1973, her parents hand her over to a childless peasant couple in the mountains. Aged two, and suffering from malnutrition on a diet of yam leaves, they leave Xiaolu with her illiterate grandparents in a fishing village on the East China Sea.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eOnce Upon a Time in the East\u003c\/em\u003e takes Xiaolu from a run-down shack to film school in a rapidly changing Beijing, navigating the everyday peculiarity of modern China—censorship, underground art, Western boyfriends. In 2002 she leaves Beijing on a scholarship to study in Britain. Now, after a decade in Europe, her tale of East to West resonates with the insight that can only come from someone who is both an outsider and at home.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'This generation's Wild Swans' \u003cem\u003eDaily Telegraph\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46375909064940,"sku":"9781784702946","price":26.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/11644293482823.jpg?v=1744828677"},{"product_id":"radical-by-xiaolu-guo-9781529920024","title":"Radical","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe new memoir from prize-winning writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo—playful, provocative, and original—it's her deeply personal take on striving for a life of her own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe new memoir from prize-winning writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo—playful, provocative, and original—it's her deeply personal take on striving for a life of her own.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'When it comes to spinning light and shadow on the complexities of living, loving and language, Xiaolu Guo is one of the most valuable writers in the world' DEBORAH LEVY\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe world can seem strange and lonely when you step away from your family and everything you have tried to call your own. Yet beauty may also appear. In the autumn of 2019, Xiaolu travelled to New York to take up her position as a visiting professor for a year, leaving her child and partner behind in London. The encounter with American culture and people threatens her sense of identity and throws her into a crisis—of meaning, desire, obligation, and selfhood.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a memoir about separation—by continents, by language, and from people. It's about being an outsider and the desperate longing to connect. Xiaolu uses her exploration of language (one of the meanings of the word 'radical' is the graphic component, or root, of Chinese characters) and her own life to create this unique text. At once a memoir, a dictionary, and an ardent love letter, it is an expression of her fascination with Western culture and her nostalgia for Eastern landscapes, and an attempt to describe the space in between. An archive of an artist's search for creative freedom, it is above all else an intimate account of her efforts to carve out a life of her own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'Radical in angle of attack, smart, and brave' IAIN SINCLAIR, author of The Gold Machine\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46377373696236,"sku":"9781529920024","price":24.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/19621963482732.jpg?v=1744832465"},{"product_id":"a-concise-chinese-english-dictionary-for-lovers-by-xiaolu-guo-9781784875312","title":"A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eVINTAGE VOYAGES\u003c\/em\u003e: A world of journeys, from the tallest mountains to the depths of the mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA charming and clever account of one woman's exploration of love, language, and identity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTwenty-three-year-old Zhuang (or Z as she calls herself) arrives in London to spend a year learning English. Struggling to find her way in the city, and through the puzzles of tense, verb, and adverb; she falls for an older Englishman and begins to realise that the landscape of love is an even trickier terrain...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eVINTAGE VOYAGES\u003c\/em\u003e: A world of journeys, from the tallest mountains to the depths of the mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46457268469996,"sku":"9781784875312","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/13367953482823.jpg?v=1747738422"},{"product_id":"a-lovers-discourse-by-xiaolu-guo-9781529112481","title":"A Lover's Discourse","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA funny and charming new novel from Xiaolu Guo about love, language, displacement and finding our place in the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA Lover's Discourse\u003c\/em\u003e is described as 'a fragmentary meditation on the nature of love' by the Guardian.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA Chinese woman comes to post-Brexit London to start over, just as the Brexit campaign reaches a fever pitch.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIsolated and lonely in a Britain increasingly hostile to foreigners, she meets a landscape architect, and the two begin to build their future together.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePlaying with language and the cultural differences that our narrator encounters as she settles into her new life, the lovers must navigate their differences and their romance, whether on their unmoored houseboat or in a cramped apartment in east London.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSuffused with a wonderful sense of humour, this intimate novel asks what it means to make a home and a family in a new land.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46529344405740,"sku":"9781529112481","price":22.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/11546533482732.jpg?v=1749211776"},{"product_id":"my-battle-of-hastings-by-xiaolu-guo-9781529918670","title":"My Battle of Hastings","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe new memoir in a triptych from prize-winning writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo, in which she moves to Hastings to find a room of her own and immerses herself in local history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'This is urgent, compelling but also delightful writing'\u003c\/em\u003e – Lauren Elkin\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the depths of winter, Xiaolu Guo moves into a tiny dilapidated flat on the Hastings seafront—a room of her own where she can spend time writing, liberated from her domestic responsibilities in London.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eShe immerses herself in the English landscape and its past, becoming preoccupied by the violence between Normans and Saxons. 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With \u003cem\u003eMy Battle of Hastings\u003c\/em\u003e, Guo shows us the effort that it takes to truly put down roots in a culture so different from the one she was born into'\u003c\/em\u003e – The Times\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46628028874988,"sku":"9781529918670","price":26.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781529918670.jpg?v=1751933855"},{"product_id":"call-me-ishmaelle-by-xiaolu-guo-9781784745615","title":"Call Me Ishmaelle","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMoby-Dick\u003c\/em\u003e reimagined from the perspective of a cross-dressed female sailor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBrilliantly written... ambitious, brave, strange\u003c\/em\u003e — Philip Hoare\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eOne of the most valuable writers in the world\u003c\/em\u003e — Deborah Levy\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e1843. 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Here, she finds protectors in Polynesian harpooner, Kauri, and Taoist monk, Muzi, whose readings of the I-Ching guide their quest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThrough the bloody male violence of whaling and the unveiling of her feminine identity, Ishmaelle realises there is a mysterious bond between herself and the mythical white whale, Moby Dick. Xiaolu Guo has crafted a dramatically different, feminist narrative that stands alongside the original while offering a powerful exploration of nature, gender, and human purpose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47076379721964,"sku":"9781784745615","price":38.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/849593f49d494c74121607e0beafb6ea.jpg?v=1765221235"},{"product_id":"call-me-ishmaelle-by-xiaolu-guo-9781529929997","title":"Call Me Ishmaelle","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom prize-winning author Xiaolu Guo comes a dazzling gender-flipped reimagining of \u003cem\u003eMoby Dick\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMoby-Dick\u003c\/em\u003e reimagined from the perspective of a cross-dressed female sailor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBrilliantly written... ambitious, brave, strange\u003c\/em\u003e - Philip Hoare\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eOne of the most valuable writers in the world\u003c\/em\u003e - Deborah Levy\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e1843. 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