Chinese and Polish deals
Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 2:03 pmIt’s my pleasure to announce that The Etched City has been taken up by Fullon Books in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, and by Mag in Poland. I really want to thank Gray Tan in Taiwan for his patience and persistence in selling the book to a difficult market.That’s 11 translations now. I feel very lucky to have had so many with a first book.
I look forward to seeing both new translations and admiring the hieroglyphic play of words I can’t read 
Edit: Title of post changed from “China and Poland” to “Chinese and Polish”. The “Chinese” refers to the Chinese language, not the political entity of the People’s Republic of China. There is currently no deal for mainland China.
January 26th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
That is great.
by all accounts someone now will be wanting to turn it into a musical.
That would be a very surreal show to go see.
or have you had offer of that already.
January 26th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Congratulations!
I remember looking at your list of translations the other day and thinking how impressive it is. Must feel great. (And I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds the idea of looking at my story in letters and symbols I don’t understand appealing.)
January 27th, 2008 at 5:13 am
Colin - I’ve sometimes imagined it as a Bollywood musical. Never had an offer, though.
Alankria - it actually feels kind of unreal. Even the fact of being published still feels unreal to me. Because good things like that aren’t supposed to happen, somehow? I don’t know.
I think lots of writers have that feeling about translations. Because you know that as well as being in foreign words, it isn’t just your story anymore; the translator has to wrangle it into his or her own language, and every time it becomes different. I’ve read a bit of my French one and I think there are places where the translator has written things better in French than I wrote them in English.
January 27th, 2008 at 6:41 am
dear K.J.
Taiwan isn’t one part of China.
for your reference
thank you
January 27th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Rith - post edited. Satisfactorily, I hope.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:46 am
AAAAH, the idea of TEC as a Bollywood musical makes my brain hurt. Congrats on the new translations!
January 27th, 2008 at 8:09 am
I’ve had an even better idea. Takarazuka
January 27th, 2008 at 8:36 am
I was kinda thinking more of a dark gothic kinda musical with the epuc sounding heavey metal done by Blind Guardian
but Bollywood style. the dream sequences would be awsome.
So any offers for a film or T.V seires yet?
January 27th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Congratulations, very muchly! There must be some extremely talented translators around as I can’t imagine TEC would be an easy book to translate. I dunno how it’d go as a musical, but it would make one hell of a kick arse anime…
January 28th, 2008 at 2:57 am
KJ - aaaah! u borken my brane
(And at the end everyone would come out and do the grand finale with a rainforest’s worth of exotic feathers stuck to their butts.)
January 28th, 2008 at 3:12 am
Nah Nah nah, the finale would be a 33ft (12.3m)
River god and a high pitch shrill sound that would feel like nails against the frontal lobe.
followed by a big bang and a bright flash.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:26 am
Colin - no offers yet. But yeah, Bollywood would do the weird stuff a treat.
Caitlyn - The translator they’ll hopefully use has translated Lois McMaster Bujold and is currently working on a Catherynne M. Valente book, so I’m sure she’s good. And oh yeah, I’d love to see it as an anime. That’s my pipe dream. (My new pipe dream is that a Hong Kong director will turn it into a wu xia film. Crouching Sphinx, Hidden Basilisk!)
Laurie - And peacock feathers, of course. Finding the right musumeyaku for Beth could be tricky. Might have to use an otokoyaku in drag. (Breaks own brain.)
January 29th, 2008 at 2:01 am
If women crossdressing as men are hot, does that make women crossdressing as men crossdressing as women even hotter?
QUITE POSSIBLY.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Only when they do it right.
and that is only when it take a 4th or 5th look to go “Oh they are male”
January 29th, 2008 at 5:05 am
Laurie - the more layers of crossdressing, the hotter. Especially if some of the layers are fur.
Colin - They are female. Otokoyaku are women who train especially to play male roles in all-female Japanese musical theatre companies.
January 29th, 2008 at 7:27 am
my comment was in reference of Laurie comment about cross dressing men.
January 29th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Laurie’s comment was actually about crossdressing women re-crossdressing as women again. But some confusion is natural.
January 29th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Sounds like Shakespeare, who’d have his female characters (played by men, back in the day) dress up as men. He may even have gone a layer further than that? I can’t remember. But it delights me nonetheless.
I wonder how that would work in fiction. On stage it’s more of a visual thing (the audience could see it was a woman in female clothing who then pretended to be a man, thus the laughs), but perhaps it could translate to less visual forms. Hmm…
January 30th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I wonder if the fact that male actors had to play women was a cause of all the crossdressing in Shakespeare’s plays - I can imagine the boys complaining about being in dresses all the time.