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Author, author21st century safaris in China focus on finding talented writersBy Kevin Drew  Students at Beijing's Peking University look over offerings at a book fair in 2004. SPECIAL REPORTYOUR E-MAIL ALERTSHONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Toby Eady is making final preparations to lead a northern spring safari, but he won't be carrying any weapons. Instead, the 65-year-old London-based literary agent will be armed with a list of names and places, with a few contracts likely stuffed into his back pocket to boot, as he directs an international entourage into urban China in mid-April. The goal is to capture one of the most sought-after prizes in publishing these days: the next hot Chinese writer. "There's a new generation of Chinese writers coming up," Eady says. "You're getting voices that are different, and publishers want to meet them." The literary tour led by Eady is one way to gauge the growing international interest in Chinese writers, a development in part spurred by the recent publishing successes from a new generation of mainland writers (Full story) "We want to find Asian writers," acknowledges Daniel Watts, managing director of the Hong Kong-based Pan McMillan Asia. "We're looking to publish in Asia and market internationally." Eady says he began leading groups of publishers into mainland China two years ago. In that short time, publishers from 25 countries have joined him on his Chinese literary journeys. The Chinese literary boom has been felt inside China, as well, as a planned economy has given way to open market conditions. In the past decade-plus, China's book publishing industry has more than quadrupled in size, according to Sun Qingguo, vice president of Beijing Open Book Market Consulting Center. In his 2004 article "Chinese Publishing: A Decade of Incredible Changes," Sun says about 170,000 titles are now being annually published in China. Eady's work with Chinese writers began 20 years ago, spurred by an interest in China born in the 1960s. In the mid-1980s he helped see through the publication of Jung Chang's "Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China." The biography of three daughters in China has sold 10 million copies worldwide. Chinese writers offer a perspective on the country -- a view Eady calls "opening from the inside out" -- that Western authors can never provide, says the head of the London-based Toby Eady Associates Ltd. "The model on books on China for so long had been some expatriate in Beijing writing from his or her sheltered room, which only offered different degrees of fear or discomfort." The Australasia region was where Chinese authors first scored international success, Eady says. "Australia is a huge market for Chinese writers," he says. "It's a country with ties to China, and is really interested in intelligent literature about China." As proof, "Mao's last Dancer," a memoir of a peasant boy in Maoist China who becomes a dancer, was a "massive" success in Australia, says Watts. The book written by Li Cunxin sold 300,000 copies there, Watts says. Time needed for Chinese worksPublishing Chinese writers internationally comes through hard work by publishers, agents and translators, Eady says. "Time is the greatest and most imposing factor," Eady says. "In order to get a book published you have to be ready for it to take three years." Preparing a manuscript for publication leads to the inevitable "Westernizing" of a Chinese work, he says. Chinese is a "pictorial" language, structured differently from Western languages, Eady says. "It's a completely different way of thinking. Inevitably, some minor alterations will be made." Additionally, there are few translators available to publishing houses who can provide top-level, nuanced translation, Eady says. "Most are young and underpaid." "It's difficult to market (internationally) a Chinese writer who can't speak English," adds Watts. "As a publisher you have to ask yourself, 'how promotable is the writer?' It can't just be a good book." "We're interested in contemporary China," Watts continues, saying that works on the cultural revolution have been "exhausted." Instead, he's interested in memoirs and mainstream fiction. Which brings Eady back to preparations for his approaching literary expedition into China. Speaking by telephone from a hotel room during a trip to New York City, Eady says he'll take Western publishers to Beijing publishing houses and literary publication editors to observe the various state-run, independent and university presses. But the greatest interest from the group of 15 or so publishers he'll lead into China will be a chance to meet writers. "Some (Chinese) writers have been signed on earlier tours. Who knows who we'll find this time." 
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