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My Battle of Hastings: Chronicle of a Year by the Sea
'One of the most valuable writers in the world' Deborah Levy
Embodiment, assimilation, integration – these are big words, but they seem to name a stage or a state I ought to be able to achieve in my brief life.
In winter 2021, Xiaolu Guo moved into a tiny dilapidated flat on the Hastings seafront, a room of her own where she could spend time writing away from her domestic duties as a mother and wife in London. As Russia invaded Ukraine, she immersed herself in the English landscape and its past, especially the violence between Normans and Saxons.
My Battle of Hastings is a chronicle of Xiaolu’s life in Hastings and a portrait of a dislocated artist seeking to connect with her local environment in the hope of finding a deeper connection to her adoptive nation. Filled with profound, beautiful and wry reflections on war, history, migration and belonging, Xiaolu’s journey into the past completes the triptych of memoirs that began with Once Upon a Time in the East, charting her childhood in China, then continued with A Life of My Own in search of a freedom beyond her home.
My Battle of Hastings is above all an exploration of how an immigrant, an outsider and a woman can embrace local and national history.
Embodiment, assimilation, integration – these are big words, but they seem to name a stage or a state I ought to be able to achieve in my brief life.
In winter 2021, Xiaolu Guo moved into a tiny dilapidated flat on the Hastings seafront, a room of her own where she could spend time writing away from her domestic duties as a mother and wife in London. As Russia invaded Ukraine, she immersed herself in the English landscape and its past, especially the violence between Normans and Saxons.
My Battle of Hastings is a chronicle of Xiaolu’s life in Hastings and a portrait of a dislocated artist seeking to connect with her local environment in the hope of finding a deeper connection to her adoptive nation. Filled with profound, beautiful and wry reflections on war, history, migration and belonging, Xiaolu’s journey into the past completes the triptych of memoirs that began with Once Upon a Time in the East, charting her childhood in China, then continued with A Life of My Own in search of a freedom beyond her home.
My Battle of Hastings is above all an exploration of how an immigrant, an outsider and a woman can embrace local and national history.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published August 1, 2024
About the author
Xiaolu Guo
38 books601 followersXiaolu Guo (Simplified Chinese: 郭小櫓 pinyin:guō xiǎo lǔ, born 1973) is a Chinese novelist and filmmaker. She utilizes various media, including film and writing, to tell stories of alienation, introspection and tragedy, and to explore China's past, present and future in an increasingly connected world.
Her novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers was nominated for the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction. She was also the 2005 Pearl Award (UK) winner for Creative Excellence.
Her novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers was nominated for the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction. She was also the 2005 Pearl Award (UK) winner for Creative Excellence.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
August 8, 2025
Was a really interesting read, more a collection of short stories/reflections than one continuous narrative. As a Hastings almost-local, I enjoyed the author's references to different parts of the town. I loved how she referenced elements of Anglo-Saxon history (especially, of course, the Battle of Hastings) and connected them to present-day Hastings and her own experiences moving to the town as a Chinese immigrant.
April 7, 2025
I love Xiaolu Guo’s writing and I love these types of memoires.
August 10, 2025
It's always nice to read someone writing about a place you know well
March 30, 2025
Such a palate cleanser after Intermezzo.
March 30, 2025
Absolutely loved reading this, not just because it's partly about English history but from the perspective of someone who grew up in China. In the book she reflected on all manner of things - history, culture, politics, our current struggles. And the writing is beautiful too!
March 31, 2026
There's something accidental, serendipitous about this book. After inheriting some money from her parents, Xiaolu wants a place on her own, by the sea. She happens upon Hastings - a place she had visited once before because of a connection to Michael Hutchence and been left with the impression that it was a "rain-stained dilapidated town with old people shuffling along on the pavement". It also left an impression of being "sexy, mysterious and somehow quintessentially English". She did not in that visit connect it with the Battle of Hastings ("the most famous Battle of British History").
She lives in Hastings for a year, mostly on her own (there are the ocasional visits from her partner or husband (she uses both terms) and 9 year old daughter. She gets a fourth floor in a modest, even dingy building above a line of shops: it has a sea view and a tub, so will do. The building has no fire doors or safe exits, yet she's directly above "the shop with hot ovens that cook pizza all day long". It's quite minimalist - she does buy a fridge, but leaves it unplugged! She has one book: Bleak House because "nature is the real book I should pay attention to". There is, however, an ongoing project to instal new windows. A lot of the book is about her day to day life in Hastings, some of it is quite mundane, but even as she recounts the contents of her vege box, she's hearing things on the radio, and reflects on what she's hearing - such as the "conscious sex worker" who works with the disabled.
At the same time, there are deeper dives into local history, and the history of war - informed by the local museum, something called the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Domesday Book, the last to help her understand what the Duke of Normandy cared about. Naturally, the 1066 Battle of Hastings features strongly: curiously, no one really knows where exactly it happened, and they haven't found the bodies of the hundreds or thousands who died in the conflict. She explains her interest in trying to put together a picture around the battle
Current history - the deposing of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, the passing of Queen Elizabeth (Xiaolu thinks about how difficult it must have been for Her Majesty if she, for example, needed to break wind in public) - gets a look in as well.
I haven't read anything quite like My Battle of Hastings, but the closest would be travel writing, where our traveller tells us about their travels and discoveries along the way, while musing about connections with home. Xiaolu obviously did a lot of reading in her year in Hastings, but presents the results quite lightly, in short chapters. One random fact I learn while reading: we share 60% of our DNA with a banana ("We are just a bunch of very complicated and violent bananas.")
She lives in Hastings for a year, mostly on her own (there are the ocasional visits from her partner or husband (she uses both terms) and 9 year old daughter. She gets a fourth floor in a modest, even dingy building above a line of shops: it has a sea view and a tub, so will do. The building has no fire doors or safe exits, yet she's directly above "the shop with hot ovens that cook pizza all day long". It's quite minimalist - she does buy a fridge, but leaves it unplugged! She has one book: Bleak House because "nature is the real book I should pay attention to". There is, however, an ongoing project to instal new windows. A lot of the book is about her day to day life in Hastings, some of it is quite mundane, but even as she recounts the contents of her vege box, she's hearing things on the radio, and reflects on what she's hearing - such as the "conscious sex worker" who works with the disabled.
At the same time, there are deeper dives into local history, and the history of war - informed by the local museum, something called the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Domesday Book, the last to help her understand what the Duke of Normandy cared about. Naturally, the 1066 Battle of Hastings features strongly: curiously, no one really knows where exactly it happened, and they haven't found the bodies of the hundreds or thousands who died in the conflict. She explains her interest in trying to put together a picture around the battle
I feel like a child trying to understand how life and death manifest themselves, and if I understand that, then I will understand the history of a country, a kingdom, a people or a decisive battle which shaped the Britain of the last thousand years.not a bad objective!
Current history - the deposing of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, the passing of Queen Elizabeth (Xiaolu thinks about how difficult it must have been for Her Majesty if she, for example, needed to break wind in public) - gets a look in as well.
I haven't read anything quite like My Battle of Hastings, but the closest would be travel writing, where our traveller tells us about their travels and discoveries along the way, while musing about connections with home. Xiaolu obviously did a lot of reading in her year in Hastings, but presents the results quite lightly, in short chapters. One random fact I learn while reading: we share 60% of our DNA with a banana ("We are just a bunch of very complicated and violent bananas.")
August 10, 2024
"It is true, the news officially announces that the Queen is dead. I listen while eating a slice of mature Cheddar. The cheese is past its sell-by date and was reduced in Marks & Spencer. It is not disimilar from the royal family, I think, though the difference is that one has persisted way, way beyond its expiry date, and is still very expensive."
As someone who grew up in several different countries, and still hopes to see more, I loved reading Xiaolu's experience of a new place and culture. How to delve into that miserably British small town life.
As someone who grew up in several different countries, and still hopes to see more, I loved reading Xiaolu's experience of a new place and culture. How to delve into that miserably British small town life.
May 21, 2026
Every now and then I come across a book whose dust-cover reviews are, in my humble opinion, so far removed from what’s inside that I am frankly amazed (think The Emperor’s New Clothes).
Personally I found the writing dull, all over the place, repetitive – but others have expressed fulsome praise:
‘Magnificent, brutal and poetic’ Iain Sinclair ???
‘… urgent, compelling, but also delightful writing, a book about war unlike any you’ll ever read.’ Lauren Elkin ???
??? Perhaps Ms Elkin hasn’t read widely on the subject??? Maybe All Quiet on the Western Front, or any one of many other classics on the experience of war might better deserve that praise?
‘One of the most valuable writers in the world’ Deborah Levy
(this from the Goodreads page for My Battle of Hastings – clearly meaning to indicate that this is Deborah Levy’s opinion of Xiaolu Guo) – erm, wait a minute, isn’t that a quote from an online opinion (mastermindparis.com) of Deborah Levy’s writing, not that of Xiaolu Guo, which says (I quote): ‘Deborah Levy is often regarded as one of the most valuable writers in the world due to her profound insights into human relationships and her ability to explore complex themes through her writing…’
I think it might be a good idea for this line therefore to be removed?!
I was really disappointed with this book, which I picked up in my local library. I have a lifelong connection with Hastings and was looking forward to reading what a Chinese author had to say about the town, but apart from a few words about the Bluetits (local cold water swimming club) it’s mostly the usual view of the town – run-down, full of sofa-sitting types. Admittedly Hastings is run-down, with very little industry and a lot of poverty and social problems, but as a friend of ours used to say of tv programmes that depicted the working class as unrelentingly ignorant oiks – ‘There are some lilies amongst the shit’!
For example, there was, even when Guo was writing, a dedicated group of locals who had an emergency communication system which meant that if any refugees landed at Hastings, having missed the Dover coast, the volunteers would turn up very quickly with blankets, hot food and drink, and other practical help (since then, the Hastings Palestine Solidarity Campaign group has also been amazingly pro-active, an inspiration to many others who support the Palestinian cause). Then there are the local fisherman, many of whom also volunteer with the Hastings Lifeboat; Trinity Wholefoods, a co-operative which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, and the community-led volunteer groups who head up campaigns for the cultural life of the town. The fact that Hastings is the setting for The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, the socialist classic written by Robert Tressell when he lived on the West Hill in the town; that Alan Turing lived in St Leonards until he was 9 years old, that Grey Owl (aka Archibald Belaney) was born and brought up in Hastings.
Guo has a lot to say about her study of the Battle of Hastings, but I found some of her views a tad sweeping – eg ‘one of the most chilling atrocities in history’ – really? Surely there are quite a few examples that could be regarded as more so – even in the narrow range of British history – so if approx 6,000 died (it is estimated) on Senlac Hill, what about the Battle of Towton, 1461, with estimates of around 28,000, or the first day of the Battle of the Somme, July 1, 1916, when approximately 57,470 British soldiers were casualties, including 19,240 fatalities, making it the bloodiest day in British military history. Further afield, what about the Battle of Stalingrad, the Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
One more bone to pick, though with the author, not the book: all the time I was reading this book there was a tiny bell ringing – was this the Chinese writer whose opinion on Dickens I had clipped from a newspaper way back?
A quick search revealed that she had indeed, in a 2018 interview in The Guardian, said that she found Dickens’ writing to be ‘sentimental, clumsy and lacks poetry’, more specifically, that it ‘…had lyrical deficiencies … overrated canonical status …lacks empathy and humour’. Really?? I beg to differ! And also might point out that Charles Dickens, a writer whose work led to huge changes in the lives of Victorians suffering in poverty, wrote for the wider readership of British people (who keenly anticipated the weekly instalments), not for the literati, and was, and still is, much-loved, Sentimental maybe, in a Victorian way, but warm-hearted and deeply moving.
Rant over!
Personally I found the writing dull, all over the place, repetitive – but others have expressed fulsome praise:
‘Magnificent, brutal and poetic’ Iain Sinclair ???
‘… urgent, compelling, but also delightful writing, a book about war unlike any you’ll ever read.’ Lauren Elkin ???
??? Perhaps Ms Elkin hasn’t read widely on the subject??? Maybe All Quiet on the Western Front, or any one of many other classics on the experience of war might better deserve that praise?
‘One of the most valuable writers in the world’ Deborah Levy
(this from the Goodreads page for My Battle of Hastings – clearly meaning to indicate that this is Deborah Levy’s opinion of Xiaolu Guo) – erm, wait a minute, isn’t that a quote from an online opinion (mastermindparis.com) of Deborah Levy’s writing, not that of Xiaolu Guo, which says (I quote): ‘Deborah Levy is often regarded as one of the most valuable writers in the world due to her profound insights into human relationships and her ability to explore complex themes through her writing…’
I think it might be a good idea for this line therefore to be removed?!
I was really disappointed with this book, which I picked up in my local library. I have a lifelong connection with Hastings and was looking forward to reading what a Chinese author had to say about the town, but apart from a few words about the Bluetits (local cold water swimming club) it’s mostly the usual view of the town – run-down, full of sofa-sitting types. Admittedly Hastings is run-down, with very little industry and a lot of poverty and social problems, but as a friend of ours used to say of tv programmes that depicted the working class as unrelentingly ignorant oiks – ‘There are some lilies amongst the shit’!
For example, there was, even when Guo was writing, a dedicated group of locals who had an emergency communication system which meant that if any refugees landed at Hastings, having missed the Dover coast, the volunteers would turn up very quickly with blankets, hot food and drink, and other practical help (since then, the Hastings Palestine Solidarity Campaign group has also been amazingly pro-active, an inspiration to many others who support the Palestinian cause). Then there are the local fisherman, many of whom also volunteer with the Hastings Lifeboat; Trinity Wholefoods, a co-operative which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, and the community-led volunteer groups who head up campaigns for the cultural life of the town. The fact that Hastings is the setting for The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, the socialist classic written by Robert Tressell when he lived on the West Hill in the town; that Alan Turing lived in St Leonards until he was 9 years old, that Grey Owl (aka Archibald Belaney) was born and brought up in Hastings.
Guo has a lot to say about her study of the Battle of Hastings, but I found some of her views a tad sweeping – eg ‘one of the most chilling atrocities in history’ – really? Surely there are quite a few examples that could be regarded as more so – even in the narrow range of British history – so if approx 6,000 died (it is estimated) on Senlac Hill, what about the Battle of Towton, 1461, with estimates of around 28,000, or the first day of the Battle of the Somme, July 1, 1916, when approximately 57,470 British soldiers were casualties, including 19,240 fatalities, making it the bloodiest day in British military history. Further afield, what about the Battle of Stalingrad, the Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
One more bone to pick, though with the author, not the book: all the time I was reading this book there was a tiny bell ringing – was this the Chinese writer whose opinion on Dickens I had clipped from a newspaper way back?
A quick search revealed that she had indeed, in a 2018 interview in The Guardian, said that she found Dickens’ writing to be ‘sentimental, clumsy and lacks poetry’, more specifically, that it ‘…had lyrical deficiencies … overrated canonical status …lacks empathy and humour’. Really?? I beg to differ! And also might point out that Charles Dickens, a writer whose work led to huge changes in the lives of Victorians suffering in poverty, wrote for the wider readership of British people (who keenly anticipated the weekly instalments), not for the literati, and was, and still is, much-loved, Sentimental maybe, in a Victorian way, but warm-hearted and deeply moving.
Rant over!
March 20, 2026
I had been planning to read this for a long time, having read an excerpt in a newspaper a few years back.
And though brief, this was a wonderful book to read. Sometimes I miss the south coast of England, so it was fun to read this through someone else's eyes. And specifically, a stranger and an artist, in a strange land, trying to create meaning and connections. If this has ever been your experience (and it has been mine), you will appreciate what Guo is attempting, and value the conversation happening here. Like Guo, I too have reached into history as a way of seeking to understand, to connect. At the same time her writing is consciously as someone coming from outside. She speaks how she finds, but is never ever thoughtless or rude. There is great freshness sometimes in the way she effortlessly avoids historiographical approaches to Hastings. l loved the way her musings give tentative shape to the reality of war, migration, settlement, power as a blow in writing a thousand years later. There is no conclusion. This is a path with potentially many miles left to run.
And though brief, this was a wonderful book to read. Sometimes I miss the south coast of England, so it was fun to read this through someone else's eyes. And specifically, a stranger and an artist, in a strange land, trying to create meaning and connections. If this has ever been your experience (and it has been mine), you will appreciate what Guo is attempting, and value the conversation happening here. Like Guo, I too have reached into history as a way of seeking to understand, to connect. At the same time her writing is consciously as someone coming from outside. She speaks how she finds, but is never ever thoughtless or rude. There is great freshness sometimes in the way she effortlessly avoids historiographical approaches to Hastings. l loved the way her musings give tentative shape to the reality of war, migration, settlement, power as a blow in writing a thousand years later. There is no conclusion. This is a path with potentially many miles left to run.
August 23, 2025
Probably the book that brought me back at reading.
I bought this at London Review of Books just the day following a my first trip to Hastings.
I fell in love with the writing of Xiaolu Guo, which is so poetic. I loved the insight on her personal life and family history, the little bits of the everyday life in a coastal British town and, in the middle of this, the actual battle of Hastings, the one that happened in 1066.
Loved her and her family walking on the beach, the blue tits swimming in the cold, the weak windows of her flat and the brexiter handyman, the Norman William, and the Anglo-Saxon Harold.
I bought this at London Review of Books just the day following a my first trip to Hastings.
I fell in love with the writing of Xiaolu Guo, which is so poetic. I loved the insight on her personal life and family history, the little bits of the everyday life in a coastal British town and, in the middle of this, the actual battle of Hastings, the one that happened in 1066.
Loved her and her family walking on the beach, the blue tits swimming in the cold, the weak windows of her flat and the brexiter handyman, the Norman William, and the Anglo-Saxon Harold.
December 28, 2024
It feels more like a series of vignettes than a coherent story but they're all very short (usually a page or two) and easy to read so it's quite pleasant going.
There were a few glaring factual errors, of the sort that makes you question everything else you read, that really should've been picked up by a copy editor.
It was also sprinkled with a bit of a casual sexism, which wasn't really my bag, but didn't completely detract from the book.
There were a few glaring factual errors, of the sort that makes you question everything else you read, that really should've been picked up by a copy editor.
It was also sprinkled with a bit of a casual sexism, which wasn't really my bag, but didn't completely detract from the book.
May 14, 2025
I lived in Hastings for fifteen years and I still live nearby. I have also read most of Guo's previous books. I liked the way she has examined Hastings through its history in a way that hasn't been done before. As a curious outsider Guo has managed to bring 1066 to life. She explores both history and the present in this enjoyable book.
April 23, 2025
I spent a long weekend in Hastings over Easter, and since I like reading local writers and stories when I travel, this book became my Easter read. I really enjoyed learning about Hastings through the authors perspective and explore it from a more historical point of view.
June 7, 2025
A little depressing (was that the point?) but good to learn what a key moment in British history and a fading seaside resort look like through the eyes of a Chinese immigrant to England. Xiaolu Guo's writing is clear and correct, and leaves me with the feeling that I ought to do better.
June 16, 2025
I really enjoyed this, particularly the way that personal memories are intertwined with history and current events. As an immigrant and now a (sort of) Hastings local, I am fascinated by the author’s reflections on this cold and sometimes unwelcoming place that I now call home.
September 24, 2024
Very meditative, like living in Hastings. Made me miss the peacefulness, but not the wind.
November 2, 2024
Very meditative and at times meandering. Relaxing and enjoyable reading this whilst also contemplating my own childhood in Hastings.
August 6, 2025
An engrossing contemplation on war and history also capturing a snapshot of the author's life in Hastings. At under 200 pages, it's a brief read but very compelling.
February 6, 2026
Why? Why does this book even exist?
March 14, 2026
Loved this! Not really sure why, when you try to describe what it's about it sounds dull, but there's something very special about it.
March 17, 2026
Exquisite!
May 11, 2025
Hastings was my home for the summer holidays every year during school holidays (many moons ago) and is a place I still visit every year. It never changes and you know what you are getting. The old town has all of your seaside town staples including arcades, a funfair, minigolf and a pub in eyesight regardless of where you stand. Take the underpass (adorned with art of the Bayeux tapestry which tends to shelter a homeless person) and you enter the new town which is your standard town centre and could not feel more different from the old town.
Guo's perspective as a foreign lady staying in Hastings during a year of international turmoil is thought provoking and relatable. Her views on British politics, immigration, Ukraine and community will be relatable to the majority of people that read this book and the comfort of relatability I found with her thoughts made the this book a rewarding read.
Hastings feels like a place that is stuck in a time loop whilst remaining endearing enough to want to return to whilst also being surrounded by the mystique of one of the worlds most famous battles and Guo manages to capture that incredibly well.
3.5/5
Guo's perspective as a foreign lady staying in Hastings during a year of international turmoil is thought provoking and relatable. Her views on British politics, immigration, Ukraine and community will be relatable to the majority of people that read this book and the comfort of relatability I found with her thoughts made the this book a rewarding read.
Hastings feels like a place that is stuck in a time loop whilst remaining endearing enough to want to return to whilst also being surrounded by the mystique of one of the worlds most famous battles and Guo manages to capture that incredibly well.
3.5/5
November 17, 2025
Melancholy vignettes of a Chinese writer's quest to get a grounding in the British psyche by studying the Battle of Hastings, after she has settled in the town that gave the battle its name. There are amusing references to the current state of the nation, and inadvertently amusing reflections on mediaeval English peasants eating potatoes. The monochrome photos taken by the author are even more melancholy than the text.
April 12, 2026
Good stuff. My proper review is here: https://patricksherriff.com/2026/01/0...
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews