Post by dormouse on Apr 23, 2019 16:08:46 GMT
In Xiaolu Guo's memoir Once Upon A Time In The East, which I have just read, she describes how she wrote and found a publisher for her first novel in English (A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers). Because she was still learning to read, speak and write English at the time she was writing it, she used that experience as the basis for her novel.
She appears to have a remarkable level of diligence and persistence, as well as a talent for language and story-telling, so I'm sure she would have found another route if this one had not worked out. Her account suggests that, if she were in the same situation today, she would have taken the indie route but it's also clear with hindsight that her success burgeoned on the trad route in a way that she would not have managed as an indie. She also enjoyed and benefited from the support she received, but I'm not sure she'd have received that level if she were starting now.
I haven't read it yet, but I will be very interested to see how she uses language as she illustrates how the protagonist develops her skill in English through the novel.
I originally put in a longer single quote from the book, but changed my mind. The full quote was more complete, showing the context and illustrating the types of thought that we all have pre-publication better than the more limited quotes, and her words are better than mine. It met the usual fair use guidelines but I became concerned that the degree of public interest benefit was not proportionate to the size of the quote. Maybe it would have been better to leave it as it is - or maybe it would be better to take the quote out completely; I don't know. I'll start a thread on copyright and quotes.
I fully recommend the memoir to everyone.
She appears to have a remarkable level of diligence and persistence, as well as a talent for language and story-telling, so I'm sure she would have found another route if this one had not worked out. Her account suggests that, if she were in the same situation today, she would have taken the indie route but it's also clear with hindsight that her success burgeoned on the trad route in a way that she would not have managed as an indie. She also enjoyed and benefited from the support she received, but I'm not sure she'd have received that level if she were starting now.
I haven't read it yet, but I will be very interested to see how she uses language as she illustrates how the protagonist develops her skill in English through the novel.
I originally put in a longer single quote from the book, but changed my mind. The full quote was more complete, showing the context and illustrating the types of thought that we all have pre-publication better than the more limited quotes, and her words are better than mine. It met the usual fair use guidelines but I became concerned that the degree of public interest benefit was not proportionate to the size of the quote. Maybe it would have been better to leave it as it is - or maybe it would be better to take the quote out completely; I don't know. I'll start a thread on copyright and quotes.
And so I worked on my first novel in English. I had to use four different Chinese–English dictionaries – two Oxford, one Longman, one Xinhua. The novel was a diary recording my frustrations with learning another language and trying to make it mine.
After I finished the novel I didn’t know what to do with it. I knew it would have little chance at ever being published, since I had written it using such broken English in a country awash with BBC voices and the perfect sentences of the Queen. And Britain was not like China, where writers could post their manuscripts directly to publishing houses. ... I happened upon the book Wild Swans. I leafed through it. In the acknowledgements, the author Jung Chang thanked her agent. ... common sense told me that an agent must be rather like a lawyer: a wheeler and dealer, someone capable of haggling shamelessly over prices, goods, terms and contracts … This was exactly the sort of person who could help me get my book published. But I had to wonder: wasn’t the merit of the writing alone enough to get it published? Was it really necessary to have a clever and expensive agent as well? In China ... agents have traditionally been viewed as parasites ... I sent my book to Jung Chang’s agent that very day. .... Who was this man? I wondered. What were the chances that he would pay any attention to a manuscript by an unknown Chinese author?
...
Over the next few months I worked with the editors intensely to improve the book. I felt much safer with their support. ...The book went on to be translated into more than twenty languages – ironic proof that even broken language can be translated if one has a good ear for how to go wrong in language.
After I finished the novel I didn’t know what to do with it. I knew it would have little chance at ever being published, since I had written it using such broken English in a country awash with BBC voices and the perfect sentences of the Queen. And Britain was not like China, where writers could post their manuscripts directly to publishing houses. ... I happened upon the book Wild Swans. I leafed through it. In the acknowledgements, the author Jung Chang thanked her agent. ... common sense told me that an agent must be rather like a lawyer: a wheeler and dealer, someone capable of haggling shamelessly over prices, goods, terms and contracts … This was exactly the sort of person who could help me get my book published. But I had to wonder: wasn’t the merit of the writing alone enough to get it published? Was it really necessary to have a clever and expensive agent as well? In China ... agents have traditionally been viewed as parasites ... I sent my book to Jung Chang’s agent that very day. .... Who was this man? I wondered. What were the chances that he would pay any attention to a manuscript by an unknown Chinese author?
...
Over the next few months I worked with the editors intensely to improve the book. I felt much safer with their support. ...The book went on to be translated into more than twenty languages – ironic proof that even broken language can be translated if one has a good ear for how to go wrong in language.
I fully recommend the memoir to everyone.