A Lover’s Discourse

Noted British writer/filmmaker Guo (I Am China) follows up the memoir Nine Continents with a novel documenting the relationship between an unnamed couple. In London during the initial period of Brexit, a newly arrived Chinese scholarship student working on her dissertation about artists in China who can produce counterfeit artwork in three days for about $50 meets an Australian German man, a landscape architect, at a book group. The two soon become lovers and move in together. What follows is a flowing work, narrated by the woman, that details their three years together through a series of their conversations. What adds to the work’s realism is the depiction of the young woman having to struggle to communicate her thoughts owing to her inability to fully comprehend British English metaphors while also translating sayings from Chinese to English.