Xiaolu Guo was born in 1973 in a fishing village in south China. She studied film at the Beijing Film Academy, worked as a screenwriter and film teacher as well as writing several books in Chinese. Xiaolu moved to London in 2002 where she began a diary written in English which became the seed for the novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (Chatto & Windus, 2007). Her novel Village of Stone, first published in China, appeared in English translation in 2004. Her films include The Concrete Revolution and How is Your Fish Today? Her website can be found at www.guoxiaolu.com.

Recent articles

"Misunderstanding. Free world. Dilemma." A foreigner's first time in London, the dictionary holds all the answers. Read an extract from Xiaolu Guo's first novel written directly in English– a study of language lost and found.