One Winchester, Many Traditions sponsors an international book club which will meet on Monday, May 14 at 7 pm to discuss Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie.
In 1971, as Mao's Cultural Revolution swept over China, shutting down universities and banishing "reactionary intellectuals" to the countryside, two teenage boys are sent to live on the remote mountain known as Phoenix in the Sky. When the narrator and his best friend Luo bargain their way into obtaining a forbidden Balzac novel from their friend Four Eyes, a new world opens up to them. When Luo falls in love with the beautiful Little Seamstress, life and literature come together in a passionate romance. The two young boys were sent to the mountains to be re-educated, yet they re-educate the farming village and the Little Seamstress. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress highlights the transformative power of literature.
Copies of the book are available on loan through the Library: ask the Circulation Desk for book clubs. For more information, check the library website, winpublib.org, or contact Marie Ariel at mariel@minlib.net or 721-7171x20.
