Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2000) is a short, semi-autobiographical novel by Dai Sijie. The narrative is set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and follows two teenage boys who are sent to a remote mountain village for re-education. The boys become close with the local tailor’s daughter and uncover a hidden stash of forbidden Western literature. The books introduce them to ideas, emotions, and freedoms they have never known, and awaken in the Little Seamstress a desire to experience life beyond the confines of her village.

Dai was born in China in 1954, and based the novel on his own experiences with re-education during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress explores themes such as The Transformative Influence of Literature, The Power of Art and Knowledge, and Loyalty and Trust in Love and Friendship. The original French language publication topped bestseller lists and received numerous literary prizes, and a movie adaptation directed by Dai was released in 2003.

This guide uses the 2002 Vintage Random House Group edition of Ina Rilke’s 2001 English translation.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide contain descriptions of political oppression and violence, and self-harm. Additionally, the source material uses offensive and outdated language to refer to people with physical disabilities.

Plot Summary

The novel’s unnamed Narrator and his best friend Luo have both been sent to an isolated rural village in the mountains for re-education. Both of their parents have been condemned as class traitors, so their chances of being permitted to return home are slim. They have little education, but the Narrator plays the violin and Luo is a gifted storyteller. They meet the local tailor’s daughter, the Little Seamstress, who is uneducated but beautiful and enjoys the company of the young city people sent for re-education. Luo falls ill with malaria while he and the Narrator work in the mountain’s coal mine, but he eventually recovers after receiving traditional remedies courtesy of the Little Seamstress.

Luo and the Narrator discover that their friend Four-Eyes, also on the mountain for re-education, has a suitcase full of illegal books by Western authors. Four-Eyes is very defensive and unforthcoming, but eventually lends them a book by Balzac which deeply affects the boys and the Little Seamstress. Luo has sex with the Little Seamstress and they start dating. With her help, Luo and the Narrator pretend to be Party officials to con a local miller into sharing folk songs with them for Four-Eyes. When Four-Eyes refuses to lend them further books in return, and they learn that his famous poetess mother has organized for him to leave the mountain, they instead steal the suitcase and all its books while he is distracted with his elaborate farewell feast.

Luo, the Narrator, and the Little Seamstress are all greatly affected by the new ideas and concepts introduced to them by the books they read, and Luo uses them to try and educate the Little Seamstress. The village headman catches the Narrator telling the tailor one of the stories and only refrains from arresting and denouncing him when Luo agrees to treat the headman’s toothache. Luo and the Little Seamstress take to swimming naked together in a secluded pool. Their adventures there are described from the perspective of the old miller, Luo, and the Little Seamstress, including the Little Seamstress’s penchant for diving and the time she was bitten by a snake trying to retrieve Luo’s keyring from the bottom of the pool.

Luo leaves the mountain for a month to visit his ill mother and asks the Narrator to guard the Little Seamstress from rival suitors in his absence. The Narrator agrees, despite his own desire for her, and helps her to procure an abortion in Yong Jing when she reveals that she is illegally pregnant with Luo’s child. Afterward, the Little Seamstress changes her appearance to fully resemble that of a sophisticated city girl and leaves the mountain to seek her fortune in the city. She does not forewarn the boys of her departure. When they catch up to her, she says that it was through Balzac that she learned the value of her beauty. Once she’s gone, Luo burns all their books in a drunken frenzy of grief.