5 ms·
Makes me wonder if Chinese writers face the same dilemma
by vonseel 7y ago
Makes me wonder if Chinese writers face the same dilemma
- baud147258 7y agoThe Chinese-reading market is one order of magnitude bigger than the German-reading market.
- bilbo0s 7y agoThank you for that. It seems so many people skip the obvious in these debates. Comparing the situation of Chinese authors and artists to that of German authors and artists is not even apples to oranges, it's apples to skyscrapers. Obviously the Chinese authors have a captive market that, to be honest, no one even really knows the size of. We only know that it is at least 6x that of German authors. Not to mention Chinese cinema which frequently take their novels and make movies out of them.
- vonseel 7y agoOf course, but English is still the de-facto universal language in the Western world, and Chinese do consume lots of American television and music. It's still a valid question.
- Insanity 7y agoNot necessarily. Europeans often have enough understanding of English even when it isn't their native tongue to read English books. But in many countries translations are still a popular way to read. Many books in Mexico are translated into Spanish and people solely read translations. In markets where translating is the norm, writing in your native tongue is not a disadvantage. In other markets and areas (Germany and Belgium come to mind), where people prefer to read in the original language, it's a disadvantage.
- agota 7y agoI wonder how much of a role does Amazon's presence in the country play. I'm from Lithuania, I prefer to read in English, but that means that books are more expensive because I have to order them from Amazon UK or Amazon DE. Meanwhile, I imagine that for a German who prefers to read in English, there wouldn't be much difference between ordering an English book from Amazon DE and picking up a German translation in the local bookstore, especially if they have Prime.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoChina is a huge book market, the biggest problem for Chinese writers is piracy.
- onemoresoop 7y agoHow about censorship? I would assume some books are considered subversive and censored by the CCP but I may be wrong.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoThose books are even more popular. The government ban list might as well be a most pirated list.