Chinese Brontë Penguins

Some years ago, when Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie was published, Anchee Min (author of Red Azalea and Becoming Madame Mao) said:

I recommend this book highly. I myself was also secretly introduced to Western culture through literature during the Cultural Revolution when I first read a hand copied Chinese translation of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Since those days many things have changed in China. The Guardian publishes how the black Penguins are prepared to enter into the Chinese market and the Brontës are in the first line: Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

It has taken more than 70 years, but Penguin has finally arrived in China. The British publisher announced yesterday that classics such as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Oliver Twist, Crime and Punishment and Moby Dick would be translated into Mandarin and sold under its logo in the world's fastest growing book market.

The first 10 novels will go on sale in November under a licensing deal with a local partner that could eventually see the UK firm marketing Chinese literature and the works of Marx and Engels to a population of 1.3 billion people. (...)

They are unlikely to hit the best seller lists in a country where, with the exception of Harry Potter, the most popular publications are usually management guides, self-help books and biographies of the rich and famous. But the British firm is betting that the titles, which also include Dante's Inferno, Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame and Leo Tolstoy's Resurrection, will have a long shelf life and beat off competition through the quality of their translations, expert introductions and copious footnotes. (...)

Penguin, which was founded in 1935, has previously sold the rights to English-language titles, but this is its first venture into the market under its own logo. It is a cautious first step. Under an agreement with Chongqing Publishing Group, the print run for the first 10 titles will be just 10,000 copies. At 20 yuan (£1.45) each, the revenue will hardly make an impact on the global balance sheet, but Penguin's chairman, John Makinson, said the company was looking at China as a long-term market. "We want to establish the Penguin brand in the Chinese market."

Categories: In_the_News, Books, Translations,Wuthering_Heights Jane_Eyre