Xiaolu Guo:

In this seminar, Xiaolu Guo will be speaking about her journey as an immigrant from China to Britain, but also her life as a migrant in southern China during and after the Cultural Revolution in the 70s and 80s. In particular she will discuss being a novelist in a second language (English) after 30 years living in China, and how she tries to create a hybrid language to write and to make films. Xiaolu attempts, as Roland Barthes would put it, to find a new language in order to escape the old language – censorship and national identity. Xiaolu, who is both a novelist and filmmaker, will show clips from her films and discuss her books. She will demonstrate the possibilities of artistic expression and freedom that falls between a collective history and a personal narrative.