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Xiaolu Guo talks about her novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. The book was her first written in English and made prestigious fiction shortlists on publication in 2007.

Twenty-three year old Zhuang \\u2013 or Z as she\\u2019s called in England because no-one can pronounce her name \\u2013 arrives to spend a year learning English. The loneliness and strangeness of the city are overwhelming, but as she struggles through the challenges of nouns and verbs and the oddities of English speech, she meets and falls in love with an older English man. When he invites her to \\u2018be my guest\\u2019 she brings round her suitcase and moves into his house.

Written in broken English that subtly improves throughout the novel, with perfectly funny insights into English cultural quirks and her own Chinese background, this is a romantic comedy about two people who neither speak one another\\u2019s language nor understand one another\\u2019s culture.

(Photo: Xiaolu Guo. Credit: David Levenson/Getty Images)