China has recently published the last group of books in the collection of world literature masterpieces after nine years of translation and compilation work.
The complete collection, named World's Literature Treasury, now includes 250 volumes of world-renowned literary works with clear publishing property rights, Beijing-based Literature Daily said Tuesday (April 9).
The People's Literature Publishing House, the publisher of the collection, put the first series of books on the Chinese market in 1993, sending a hot hit to media, experts and readers.
Of all the selected masterpieces, about 40 volumes, or nearly 20 percent, are works of Chinese, according to Tong Baomin, director of the publishing house in charge of foreign literature editing.
This is quite distinctive compared with the former practice, given the fact that most writings of "world"-level literary significance published in China are usually authored by foreigners, the newspaper reported.
The publication of the literature series is a big step forward in China's publishing industry in terms of its scale, quality and selection of specific literary works, experts said.
(China Daily April 12, 2002)
