Murakami's 1Q84: US$1m for Rights to Chinese Version?
The Global Times reports that Thinkingdom Media Group has acquired the rights to publish Murakami Haruki's best seller, 1Q84, in simplified Chinese. Release for the first volume is set for end May.
Three very interesting developments in this deal:
---The group reportedly (no source cited) paid US$1m for the rights, which would make it the highest figure ever paid to publish a foreign book in Chinese for distribution in mainland China;
---It will first appear in hardback;
---Lin Shaohua (林少华), the translator of all but one of Murakami's novels, did not get the nod for this one. 1Q84 will be translated by Shi Xiaowei (施小炜), who translated Murakami's most recent work, What I Talk about when I Talk about Running.
Given that the first two volumes are already out in languages such as English, French, Spanish and German, one can't help wondering at the publisher's decision to launch just the first volume now, and to do so in hardback. Surely both volumes are already up in Chinese on-line where they can be accessed and perhaps even downloaded for free?
On a personal note, am pleased to see that the "Lin Shaohua Era" has come to an end. I don't read Japanese well enough to comment on the accuracy of his translations of Murakami. But I have read Lin Shaohua's as well as English and French versions, and his style leaves one feeling as if the books were penned in Chinese by a pretentious Chinese intellectual, and that really turns me off. I just don't believe that Murakami thinks or writes like a Chinese intellectual.
Bruce Humes
Chinese Books, English Reviews
By Bruce Humes, May 13, 9:11p.m.