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Xiaolu Guo

Xiaolu Guo is a writer and film-maker. Her novels include A Concise Chinese–English Dictionary for Lovers, shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction, UFO in Her Eyes and I Am China, longlisted for the 2015 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her memoir Once Upon a Time in the East is published in 2017. She was one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2013. She lives in Berlin and London.

Xiaolu Guo on Granta.com

Essays & Memoir | The Online Edition

Essays & Memoir | The Online Edition

Oath to the Queen

Xiaolu Guo

Xiaolu Guo on The Archers, the Life in the UK Test and swearing allegiance to the Queen.

Essays & Memoir | Issue 138

Essays & Memoir | Issue 138

Well Done, No. 3777!

Xiaolu Guo

‘I grew up in the semi-tropical south, dotted by wet paddy fields, but I always wanted to go to the north.’

Essays & Memoir | Issue 138

Essays & Memoir | Issue 138

Best book of 1947: L’Écume des Jours by Boris Vian

Xiaolu Guo

‘In those spring nights, I sat by barbecue stalls in the streets of Beijing, reading this novel under dim streetlights while eating lamb skewers.’

Essays & Memoir | Issue 138

Essays & Memoir | Issue 138

The Price of Freedom, Including VAT

Xiaolu Guo

‘I had lost my native country, now I was going to lose a continent.’

In Conversation | Issue 138

In Conversation | Issue 138

Xiaolu Guo | Podcast

Xiaolu Guo & Ellah Alfrey

Xiaolu Guo speaks to Ellah Alfrey about growing up in rural China, becoming an East Ender and writing in English.

Fiction | Issue 123

Fiction | Issue 123

Interim Zone

Xiaolu Guo

‘His father had sent him into exile.’

Essays & Memoir | Issue 123

Essays & Memoir | Issue 123

Xiaolu Guo | My Writing Playlist

Xiaolu Guo

‘The challenge of flowing in one continuous outpouring of language in a novel is my killer.’