This book is a gem, set during the dark days of China's Cultural Revolution, in which novels, particularly novels from the non-communist world, were banned. Two young men from 'bourgeois' families are sent to the remote mountains of Szechuan for a political 're-education' which takes the form of sharing the back-breaking and frequently dangerous work of the peasants. During their stay on Phoenix Mountain the young men's 're-education' takes on another form as they discover an illicit cache of European classic novels, including the works of Balzac and Flaubert. Through the pages of these novels they are able to enter a world of sensuality and sensitivity far removed from the harshness of Mao's China. They use the stories learned from Balzac to win the attention of the book's most delightful character, the Little Seamstress herself, a wild and beautiful mountain flower. The effect on the Little Seamstress of the French stories, the way she too is re-educated, generates one of the most important and poignant strands of this novel's plot. There are many moments of humour in Sijie's book - for instance, when the character Four-Eyes attempts to turn a bawdy folk-song into Maoist propaganda. There are moments too of stunning beauty, as in Sijie's description of the Little Seamstress swimming in the mountain pool, and moments towards the end of the novel of intense pathos. Despite the book's short length, Sijie manages to achieve a narrative of great emotional power as he celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the face of tyranny: Mao's great ideological apparatus is no match for the capacity of young men to fool around, cheat authority, and pursue friendship and love - and Sijie shows that no grey life-denying dogma can ever repress the great tide of life that surges through every appearance in this beautiful novel of the Little Seamstress herself.