English - Paperback

by Wang Gang (Author), Martin Merz (Translator), Jane Weizhen Pan (Translator)

"I loved this book and can't stop talking about it. . . . Transcendent." --Carolyn See, The Washington Post

In the tradition of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Wang Gang's English is a captivating coming-of-age novel about the power of language to launch a journey of self-discovery. When a new teacher--a tall, elegantly dressed man from Shanghai carrying an English dictionary under his arm--comes to Urumqi, the capital of China's far west region of Xinjiang, twelve-year-old Love Liu turns away from Chairman Mao's little red book and toward the teacher's big blue book for answers to his most pressing questions about love and life. But as a whole new world begins to open up for him, Love Liu must face a test more challenging than any he'll take in the classroom.

Author Biography

Wang Gang based English on his experiences growing up in the Xinjiang region in China's far west. He now lives in Beijing and is the author of a number of critically acclaimed novels as well as the screenplays for two enormously popular Chinese films. English is his first novel to be translated into English, and rights have been sold around the world.