Fifteen years after the Shanghai-based Big Apple Agency Ltd. introduced J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye to Chinese readers — the book has since sold nearly nearly one million copies in China — the company is now hoping to discover a Chinese “Holden Caulfield” who can cross-over back to Western culture.

In January, Big Apple, which was among the first literary agencies in Taiwan and mainland China, opened a branch office in Honolulu, Hawaii. The company, dubbed Paradise Literary Agency, represents writers from China and Southeast Asia and strives to introduce their works into the West.