Going global

International book markets have long been dominated by British and American literature. As a result, literary works produced in other countries have not received the global attention they deserve. Wu Ming-yi’s The Man with the Compound Eyes therefore marks a milestone: having been translated into more than ten languages, it has found a place on the shelves of many foreign bookshops.

The DHP offers grants for the publication of Taiwanese works in translation twice a year. From 2015, when this scheme began, to 2021, it received 365 applications. Of the 196 projects that were awarded grants, 122 have been published in a total of 25 languages, Japanese being the dominant language, followed by English. Wu Ming-yi’s works are especially popular, being translated into the greatest number of languages and even going on to win literary prizes overseas. The French version of Wu’s The Man with the Compound Eyes was selected for the Prix du Livre Insulaire in 2014; in 2018 The Stolen Bicycle was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize; and the French translation of Magician on the Skywalk was nominated for the Prix Émile Guimet de littérature asiatique in 2018. Magician on the Skywalk has since been adapted into a graphic novel and a TV drama.

“Bei Lynn’s illustrated book Granny’s Favorite Toy won the Sankei Children’s Book Award in Japan in 2019. Syaman Rapongan’s Drifting Dream on the Ocean won Japan’s Tekken Heterotopia Literary Prize in 2018. And in 2017 Hou Wen-yong’s Dangerous Mind was selected as one of the ‘most readworthy’ books in Thailand. They’ve all performed exceedingly well,” says Chen Ying-fang, director of the DHP.
 

Chen Ying-fang, director of the Ministry of Culture’s Department of Humanities and Publications, studied in the Graduate Institute of Library and Information Science at National Taiwan University. For four years she has been helping Taiwanese publishers enhance their market access.
 

Promoting books

“In addition to funding translations and publications, we actively take part in foreign book fairs and run a scheme called Books from Taiwan to license rights internationally, providing more opportunities for overseas publishers to discover excellent books from Taiwan,” Chen says. The DHP’s main brief is to foster and support the publishing industry, but it has also been of tremend­ous help to writers and artists. For example, it has previ­ously made arrangements for winners of the Golden Comic Awards to attend the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême in France. The DHP also facilitates residential fellowships. In 2021 it arranged for Ray He to visit bd BOUM’s Maison de la BD in Blois in central France for a residency. Also a former residential fellow in Blois, GCA awardee Tseng Yao-ching took up a residency at Hablar en Arte in Spain this year. He is currently collaborating on a publishing project with French comic-book writer Frédéric Debomy.

“The diligent support of Taiwanese and foreign embassies and missions is absolutely crucial,” Chen says. Martin Podstavek, Slovak representative in Taipei since 2017, enrolled his son in an ordinary Taiwanese primary school. Having read a rich diversity of Taiwanese children’s books with her son, Podstavek’s wife, Liang Chen, was inspired to initiate an exchange of children’s books between the two countries. So far she has made funding applications for 12 Taiwanese books; ten have been published in Slovakia. She has also introduced eight Slovak children’s books to Taiwan. All of these books were translated by Liang herself. “As the Slovak language is similar to Polish and Czech, if a Taiwanese children’s book is published in Slovakia, it will be easily noticed by Polish and Czech readers. It will have a good spillover effect.” Chen Ying-fang also recalls receiving applications from Hungarian publishers in 2021 for books by writers such as Chang Ta-chun and Hung Yuchun. It turned out that staff at the Taipei Representative Office in Budapest had directly contacted the Hungarian publishers to recommend these books.

“Taiwanese diplomats abroad are very ­familiar with local markets, so they’re the best people to help promote books.” Chen tells us that in 2020 the Taiwan Cultural Center in Tokyo started collaborating with Eslite Spectrum Nihonbashi to celebrate one Taiwanese writer every season. Last year they organized lectures and exhibitions, forging dialogues with Japanese readers. Owing to the popularity of these events, Kinokuniya has also set apart “Taiwanese Books” sections in their shops, further contributing to a growing fashion for Taiwan among Japanese readers.

Translating literature

The key to introducing a literary work to inter­national readers is good translation. Good translators will use their hard-earned skills to fully convey what their authors mean and to eliminate linguistic and cultural barriers for their readers, while preserving a sense of authenticity.

“For a translated book to be enjoyable, it’s important to be faithful to the original text,” says Professor Lin Shui-fu, who served as an assessor for the DHP’s funding scheme for three years running. A translator himself for 44 years, not only is Lin a cynosure in the field of Japanese–Mandarin translation, but he has also played a major role in introducing leading Japanese writers to Taiwanese readers. He says: “Every reader interprets a text in a different way. This is why you come across the same work in different translations, each of which has its own supporters.” He also mentions that some translators like to pepper their translations with idioms or popular expressions, or decorate them with pretty phrases. This is not necessarily bad practice, but if these translations depart from original meanings, they will no longer be vehicles of cultural exchange. As a translator, Lin would reproduce Japanese words that do not have any Chinese equivalents, and insert explanatory notes. For him, the point of introducing foreign books is to acquaint readers with the culture of another country.
 

Lin Shui-fu recommends working with Taiwan cultural centers abroad to stage events and put out information to attract the attention of foreign publishers and readers. He is sure this will help Taiwanese books go global.
 

A triangular relationship

Working with language, a translator has to have a good grounding in literature.

Moreover, not only do translators who translate into Chinese need to be good at writing in Chinese, but they must envision the relationship between author, trans­lator, and reader as a triangle with unequal sides. In other words, as a translator, you either adopt the ­reader’s viewpoint or adhere to the author’s intention. The relationship can never resemble a triangle with equal sides. “I’ve noticed that some translators only work on texts whose styles they’re familiar with, or if they translate different authors, the translations will all turn out to be of the same style. This is not good practice.” Lin hopes that literary translators will endeavor to be faithful to their authors by reproducing the original styles.

Minister of Culture Lee Yung-te sets great store by inter­national literary exchanges, seeking to open up more global possibilities for Taiwan’s creative liter­ature. Lin Shui-fu believes that the DHP’s funding scheme has further facilitated international literary interactions. Formerly the first director of the Taiwan Cultural Center in Tokyo, Lin offers this advice: “We could regularly arrange for groups of writers to promote their works abroad. It would be ideal to work with local Taiwan cultural centers to organize events and create trends in order to attract the attention of local publishers and readers. This would certainly help Taiwanese books go global.”

Government–industry collaboration

“When it comes to graphic novels, Taiwanese authors usually write standalone books, but readers in other countries prefer series.” Chen Ying-fang tells us about foreign publishers’ perceptions of Taiwanese books: they tend to cherish higher hopes for medium-length or long books that present full narratives. Jessie Hsieh works for The Grayhawk Agency, a Taiwan-based company that started to handle inter­national rights for Chinese-­language writers in 2009, and has so far sold rights to publishers in more than 30 countries. She pins down Western readers’ preferences: “Topics that engage with universal values such as feelings and the environment easily resonate with readers.” For example, Andrew Yeh’s Green Monkey Syndrome, a Taiwanese sci-fi work first published in 1979, was reissued by China Times Publishing in 2020. Almost presciently, it tells the story of a virus-ridden island country. As the book obviously chimes with the global fight against Covid-19, it is not hard to promote it internationally.

Grayhawk now manages Books from Taiwan (BFT), an initiative funded by the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA). This is a perfect example of the government joining forces with the private sector to help Taiwanese books break into international markets. Every year BFT invites Taiwanese publishers to submit books for con­sidera­tion, selecting 52 titles out of around 400 proposals. From 2014 to 2021, it sold foreign rights to 394 books into 31 countries, for publication in 24 languages. Catrina Liu, who is responsible for rights licensing at BFT, observes that the West still dominates global book markets, and that Western editors with shared interests tend to form international circles of friends. Accordingly, sometimes rights to a book can quickly be sold in many countries just by word of mouth. Chen Ying-fang says this is exactly why the government collaborates with the private sector: benefiting from each other’s strengths, they hope to send more Taiwanese books out into the wider world.

For more pictures, please click《Going Global — Taiwanese Books in Translation》