A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (2007)

AN 'A' TO Z Xiaolu Guo's first English-language novel smartly tracks a young Chinese woman's adaptation to life in London

Soon after she arrives in London, a young Chinese woman who goes by the initial Z (''please no worry to remember, my name too long pronounce'') meets her future lover. This unnamed artist invites Z to be a guest at his home and doesn't object when Z, misunderstanding the offer, moves in. In steadily improving (and comically blunt) English, Z records a year of her sexual discovery and cultural confusion, along with new words like pub, migraine, and bisexual. Xiaolu Guo's A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary, her first novel in English, is smartly absorbing. A