Dai Sijie (b. 1954) is a French author and film maker. His first book, the semi-autobiographical Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse chinoise (Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress) (2000), was recently made into a movie which he himself adapted and directed. It recounts the story of a pair of friends who become good friends with a local seamstress while spending time at a reeducation camp. They steal a suitcase filled with classic Western novels from another man being reeducated, and decide to enrich the seamstress' life by exposing her to great literature. These novels also serve to sustain the two companions during this difficult time. The story principally deals with the cultural universality of great literature and its redeeming power. The novel has been translated into twenty-five languages, although not into Sijie's native Chinese, as his work is banned in his country of origin. His second book, Le Complexe de Di won the Prix Fémina for 2003. It recounts the travels of a Chinese man whose philosophy has been influenced by French psychoanalyst thought. The title is a play on "un complexe d'Oedipe", or "an Oedipus complex". Jump to: navigation, search 1954 was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search The word author has several meanings: The author of a book, story, article or the like, is the person who has written it (or is writing it). ... Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the year 2000. ... The Prix Femina is a French literary prize created in 1904 by 22 writers for the magazine La Vie heureuse (today known as Femina). ... Jump to: navigation, search 2003 (MMIII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Dai Sijie was born in China in 1954. Because he came from an educated middle-class family, the Maoist government sent to a reeducation camp in rural Szechuan from 1971 to 1974, during the Cultural Revolution. After his return, he was able to complete high school and university, where he studied art history. In 1984, he left China for France on a scholarship. There, he acquired a passion for movies and became a director. Before turning to writing, he made three critically-aclaimed feature-length films: China, My Sorrow (1989) (original title: Chine, ma douleur), Le mangeur de lune and Tang, le onzième. He lives in Paris and writes in French. Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought (Chinese: 毛澤東思想, pinyin: Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng), also called Marxism-Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM), is a variant of communism derived from the teachings of Mao Zedong (1893–1976). ... Sichuan (Chinese: 四川; pinyin: Sìchuān; Wade-Giles: Ssu-ch`uan; non-standard transliteration: Szechwan) is a province in central-western China with its capital at Chengdu. ... Jump to: navigation, search A poster during the Cultural Revolution. ...

Books by Dai Sijie

Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse chinoise (2000)

Le Complexe de Di (2003)