Xiaolu Guo’s memoir about growing up in China shortlisted for Costa book prize

Chinese writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo. [File photo: IC]

Writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo has been shortlisted for the 2017 Costa Biography Award for her latest book, Once Upon a Time in the East: A Story of Growing Up.

In the memoir, Guo recalls her life: from the struggles of her childhood living in an impoverished fishing village away from her parents, to her experiences as a film student in Beijing’s rapidly changing cityscape, to her move to the UK in 2002.

Guo has previously been nominated for a number of prizes including the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, Orange Prize for Fiction and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In 2013 she was named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.

As a filmmaker, she is best known for the 2011 comedy UFO in Her Eyes and drama She, a Chinese (2009). 

The winners of the Costa Award from each of the five categories - Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book - will be announced on Tuesday 2nd January 2018, with each winner receiving a prize of £5,000.