From the author of the sublime "Balzac & The Little Chinese Seamstress" (which was made into a film) this wonderful new piece of fiction picks up, ten years later, from the final pages of "Balzac".

When the stories main man, the heartbroken Muo, learns from Paris that the Little Seamstress has now been jailed for selling a newspaper article to the foreign press, he travels back to plead with the judge hearing the case. Aware that the court can be swayed, he attempts to bribe the judge with cash, a car...all to set his long lost love free. However, having been filled to the brim with such backhanders, the judge sets an altogether more difficult task for Muo in order to allow him set the girl free: find him a virgin girl to satisfy his sexual predilection for the unsullied. This gives rise to a series of adventures as Muo, desperate to find such a creature, searches high and low for the key to unlock his lost love from jail.

Again, a clever and well thought out piece of work that not only manages to entertain as a great story in it's own right, but also a tremendous satire on the corrupt nature of China's judiciary, Dai Sijie once again affirms his status as one of China's foremost novelists and commentators of our time.