Global demand for Chinese literature sees a surge
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Chinese readers talk with a Russian author at the booth for Russia during the fair. [Chen Xiaogen/China Daily] |
Of the 37,640 titles of Chinese books collected by more than 20,000 overseas libraries in 2013, some 79 percent is on contemporary literature, one of its reports released during the book fair says.
"There was always a demand from abroad for Chinese literature, but somehow, the market demand seems to have increased in recent years," says Lu Nan, who works in the international cooperation department of the People's Literature Publishing House.
The publishing house started to export literature copyrights in the 1990s, primarily to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and some Asian countries and regions, such as Vietnam.
Now, through cooperation with prestigious international publishers and agents, it is able to sell contemporary Chinese literature copyrights in Western markets.
However, according to the journal's report on overseas libraries' collection of Chinese books, only 9 percent of about 400,000 titles published in China in 2013 were collected by overseas libraries.
Chinese publishers tend to believe that even Mo sold only about 10,000 copies of his books in foreign languages in the past decade.
Lu says that most of the contemporary Chinese literature sold to Western buyers by the People's Literature Publishing House first needed to be pitched to foreign publishing houses or copyright agencies by the Chinese.
Mai Jia, perhaps China's most widely recognized writer in the West, recently spoke about the popularity of Chinese literature in the global arena. "My book couldn't have been as successful as it is now (in foreign countries) if it had come out 10 years ago," Mai says.
China's rapid economic progress in the past three decades has made foreign readers curious about China, which in turn has helped draw attention to Chinese writers such as himself, he adds.
"However, my success was a stroke of luck and as a group, Chinese writers still have little influence globally."
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