In China, he is known as the man who put the dizi, the Chinese flute, on the musical map, having helped pen the film scores for The Last Emperor and The Killing Fields. He has worked with film director Bernardo Bertolucci and has toured and played with music artists such as Peter Gabriel and Sinead O'Connor. In Britain, where he has lived for much of the past 25 years, he is also famous as a chef, called upon for advice on Chinese cooking and to host culinary workshops for the acclaimed Divertimenti school.
Now Guo Yue has fused both his loves in a musical memoir - a kind of scored narrative. He
has produced a CD of haunting and enchanting songs that paint a soundtrack for his book Music, Food and Love, a volume that recalls his childhood in Beijing's maze of alleys and features an array of traditional Chinese recipes.
Music, Food and Love is not just another account of the suffering endured by mainland Chinese during the communist revolution. Guo brings this distant period to life through a hymn-like account
of his childhood, evoking the smells, sounds and flavours of the small hutong dwelling he shared with his family. It is a child's-eye view - apolitical and innocent, though far from simplistic - skilfully weaving together the Chinese way of thinking and China's modern history with his thoughts and feelings about food and his family.
Perhaps the back of the book best sums up his latest enterprise: 'There was a saying in my childhood that you could always tell when it was 6 o'clock in the evening because, at that moment, the entire city would vibrate with the force of chopping.'