Granta

Continuing a series of podcasts featuring our Best of Young British Novelists, today we bring you an interview with Xiaolu Guo. Guo studied at the Beijing Film Academy and received her MA from the National Film School in London. She has published seven novels in both English and Chinese. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her other novels include UFO in Her Eyes and 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth. She directed the award-winning films, She, a Chinese and Once Upon a Time Proletrian. 'Interim Zone', in the issue, is an excerpt from I Am China, her new novel forthcoming from Chatto & Windus in the UK. Here she spoke to deputy editor Ellah Allfrey about her experience of growing up in rural China, her move to writing in English and becoming an East Ender.