Hawthorn Tree Forever: Rights Sold to Buyers in the EU, Brazil and Canada

Within just ten days in April 2010, this tragic Chinese-language love story set in the Cultural Revolution has found buyers on three continents. Meanwhile, director Zhang Yi-Mou began shooting the film adaptation on April 16 in Yichang, Hubei.

The story revolves around a real-life unfulfilled romance in the mid-seventies between two zhiqing(知青), or young educated urbanites, who have been sent down to the countryside for re-education through labor during the Cultural Revolution (1965-75). The budding romance between Jingqiu, who comes from a family with an "undesirable" class background, and Laosan, the son of a mighty army general, is cut short by fate when he dies of Leukemia. Jingqiu later emigrated to the US and eventually shared her diary with author Ai Mi (艾米), who penned Hawthorn Tree Forever (山楂树之恋). The work was winner of the Dangdai Readers' Choice Award for Best Novel (2007) and chosen as one the Asia Weekly Top Ten Novels of the Year (2007).

According to Gray Tan at the Grayhawk Agency in Taipei, between April 13 and 23 rights were sold to several buyers in this order: Rizzoli (Italy), Leya (Brazil), Belfond (France), Virago (UK/Commonweath), House of Anasi (Canada), and Gyldendal (Norway). The foreign rights to Hawthorn Tree Forever are represented by Barbara J. Zitwer on behalf of the Grayhawk Agency.