THE COOKED SEED by Anchee Min

The most poignant moment in The Cooked Seedis when Anchee asked her lover, Qigu,  “Do you love me?”  They had been in a relationship for several months, but he had never said the words, I love you.  It was not  “the Chinese way,” he said. “You know how I feel about you, . . . and I know how you feel about me.  Isn't that enough?”
They wed, had a child and remained together for six years.  Qigu, an artist, was the grasshopper to Anchee’s worker-ant (although, she a...