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Dai Sijie's 2000 novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress contains elements drawn from Sijie's own life-there are many parallels between the experiences of the novel's unnamed narrator and those of Sijie-and as a result Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is regularly described as an autobiographical novel. This characterization can be useful, but it also presents drawbacks in terms of how the work is perceived, given the high value placed on creativity and imagination in artistic endeavors. Readers who take this characterization to mean that Sijie merely fictionalized actual events may conclude that _____