Two answers required. An author from one of these two countries set a novel in the other in which a girl falls in love with a Japanese soldier after playing go with him in the town square. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name these two countries. A writer from one of these two countries was exiled to the other after writing a play in which characters like Hothead, Glasses, and the Carpenter discuss why they’re waiting at the title location.
ANSWER: China AND France [accept Zhōngguó in place of “China”] (The novel in the lead-in is Shan Sa’s The Girl Who Played Go; the play is Gāo Xíngjiàn’s Bus Stop.)
[10e] Two boys read French literature in a labor camp in a Dài Sījié novel titled for this author and the Little Chinese Seamstress. This author included Père Goriot and Cousin Bette in the cycle The Human Comedy.
ANSWER: Honoré de Balzac [or Honoré Balzac; accept Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress]
[10m] Two French girls devise a literary hoax together in Yiyun Li’s The Book of Goose, which has earned it comparisons to this Italian author’s depiction of Lenù and Lila’s friendship in the Neapolitan Novels.
ANSWER: Elena Ferrante
<CM, European Literature>