Xiaolu Guo is a novelist, essayist, screenwriter and film maker. She was born in south-eastern China in 1973 and studied Film at Beijiing Film Academy and the UK National Film & TV School.
Her novel in English translation, Village of Stone (2004), was shortlisted for the 2005 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2006 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It was followed by her first novel written in English, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (2007), which tells the story of Z, a Chinese student‘s encounters in London and her inner journey of self-discovery. It was shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction.
Further novels followed: 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth (2008), which tells the tale of Fenfang, a film extra’s snapshots in Beijing, and was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize; UFO In Her Eyes (2009), a surrealist account about globalisation; a collection of short stories of solitary people in transit, entitled Lovers in the Age of Indifference (2010); and I Am China, a novel, which was published in 2014.
Her award-winning films include the feature films She, a Chinese (2009, Golden Leopard Award in Locarno Film Festival) and UFO In Her Eyes (2011), the latter adapted as a screenplay from her novel, and screened at international film festivals. Her documentaries include Once upon a time Proletarian (2009), We Went to Wonderland (2008), How Is Your Fish Today? (2006) and The Concrete Revolution (2004), which was awarded the Grand Prix in the 2005 International Human Rights Film Festival (France).
In April 2013, she was named one of the 'Best of Young British Novelists' by Granta Magazine.
Projects
- Novels & Non-fictionsDuring the last 15 years in the UK I have published several novels and non-fictions with Random House about the culture of immigrants and women’s conditions. some received major literary prizes. I have also directed and filmed nearly 10 films about migration and women’s changing roles in the current society both in the East and West.
- Weather StationsSpent last 2 years involving in Weather Station project with the Free Word center in the UK – a major international project with 5 countries creating literary responses to climate change and explore the issue of global warming. I have been working with climate scientists and other writers across Europe and Australia and have participated in major climate-change marches in NYC as well as in London.
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Skills
- Writing
- Film
Awards
Best of Young British Novelists