Xiaolu Guo FRSL is a Chinese British novelist, memoirist and filmmaker. She has published 12 books with Penguin UK including A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, and I Am China. Her memoir Once Upon A Time In The East won the National Book Critics Circle Award 2017 and shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Award, Folio Prize and Costa Award. Her novel A Lover’s Discourse is shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2020. Named as a Granta’s Best of Young British Novelist, she also directed a dozen films including How Is Your Fish Today (Sundance) and UFO In Her Eyes (TIFF). Her feature She, A Chinese received the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno Film Festival 2009.

She had her film retrospectives at London’s Whitechapel Gallery 2019, Athens Film Archives 2018, and Cinematheque Switzerland 2011. Her recent nonfictions include Radical and My Battle of Hastings. She has written the libretto and screenplay Bound/Unbound for Tangram 2024. Her new novel Call Me Ishmaelle is published in 2025. She is Writer in Residence at University College London.