In Once Upon a Time in the East, Xiaolu Guo recalls the fatalism that enveloped her lonely and troubled childhood in south-eastern China: “Silence was the way we communicated, a family tradition carried down to my brother and me from my parents and their parents . . . Never mention the tragedies, and never question them. Move on, get on with life, since you couldn’t change the fact of your birth.”
The facts of her birth may have presented too many obstacles for most. Given away as a baby, then returned to her destitute grandparents and finally to her parents, Guo hunted birds and toads to avoid starvation and from the age of 12 was often abused and raped on her way home from school. Nevertheless, although she was illiterate until the age of eight and lived without glasses for her severe myopia until she was 20, Guo won one of 11 places – out of 7,000 applications – to study at the prestigious Beijing Film Academy. By the time she was 40, she had made 12 films, written ten books (five of them in English) and been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. This autobiography is her account of fiery, artistic defiance and a testament to the act of storytelling as a way to break the silence.
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