Dai Sijie

Dai Sijie's parents were medical professionals in Sichuan Province. As an only child, Dai would've been excused from Mao's "Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside" program, which sought to "re-educate" young students by sending them to work and learn from the rural peasants. Dai chose to participate, however, and he cites the allure of rigorous training as his reasoning. His experience being sent to live among peasants during the Cultural Revolution was the inspiration for Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, which is semi-autobiographical. After returning from his re-education, he taught high school in Chengdu and studied art history at Sichuan University before receiving a scholarship in 1984 to study film in France. In France, he directed several films before turning to writing. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress was his first novel, and it won five French literary awards. It has been translated into 25 languages as of 2017. Dai lives in Paris and writes primarily in French, though he does possess a Chinese passport and can travel to and from China freely.