Few people in the West have heard of Porter, a translator of Chinese poetry and religious works whose books in print—many of them published by a small non-profit, Copper Canyon Press—rarely sell more than a thousand copies each year. For most of the past decade, he says, his annual income has hovered around $15,000. Several of his books humorously thank the US Department of Agriculture—for providing food stamps that have kept him and his family going.

But Porter, who translates under the pen name Red Pine (赤松), has also published two minor classics of Chinese travel writing, Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits and Zen Baggage: a Pilgrimage to China—works that have recently gained him a huge Chinese following, thanks to a small but growing new publishing culture for foreign authors.