Little Chinese Seamstress

Just finished reading Dai Saijie's critically acclaimed novella Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. It's a very quick read (187 pages, completed it in three evenings). It's a story about two sons of doctors sent to a remote mountain village for "re-education" during the height of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. There, the two protagonists meet the granddaughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden suitcase filled with various Western novels in Chinese translation.

The escapades of the narrator and his friend Luo are simultaneously funny and bittersweet. They encounter the "most beautiful girl in all the nearby villages" (the Little Seamstress) and she becomes Luo's girlfriend. The boys then stumble upon books by French greats (Balzac, Dumas and Romain Rolland) in a time when all books are forbidden except propaganda materials and Chairman Mao's "Little Red Book."