Chinese Literature: London Book Fair provides platform for Chinese books to West

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A new heat in Chinese literature has been spotted at the London Book Fair this year. From the collection of Chinese President Xi Jinping's speeches and letters to the English edition of well-known martial arts novelist Jin Yong, the Chinese written art is attracting fans globally. CGTN's Frances Kuo has the story.

For book lovers -- the annual London book fair is a dream. It's one of the largest publishing events in the world.

China's exhibitors use it as a platform to showcase China to the world. One of their main features -- the second volume of Chinese President Xi Jinping's book on governance.

JACOPO MARCOMENI, SALES MANAGER LIST LAB "As soon as I arrived here, I saw the scene. I am interested in Chinese politics in general. I studied political science."

The book is a collection of President Xi's speeches and letters -- providing insight into the thoughts of the Chinese leader.

HU KAIMIN, ASSOCIATE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESS "This is the first time the second volume of President Xi Jinping's book is shown at the London Book Fair. It attracts the interest of many international publishers and many of them are discussing publication, including Italy, the UK and other European countries. It also attracts the interest of many readers."

And it's not just politics. The fair also included a best-selling martial arts novel, "Legends of the Condor Heroes" by Jin Yong. But the challenge is to translate the novels into other languages -- and still maintain the integrity of the Chinese language.

ANNA HOLMWOOD TRANSLATOR "There is a lot of specialist vocabulary when it comes to martial arts and lots of things to do with Chinese medicine and like the acupuncture points and all these kind of things. So trying to find a way to convey all that in English without being too technical, too boring that was difficult but fun."

Because of that complexity, many famous Chinese works are hardly known in the west.

LI WEICHANG, CRITIC SHANGHAI WRITERS ASSOCIATION "Translating Chinese literature into English has to be more dependent on Western scholars and sinologists. We have an understanding that translators who understand our language can do the work, but it has a long way to go. We should have more Chinese translators, which is another way to spread Chinese stories to the world."

One of those translators is Richard Kong. A Chinese-American student from the University of Maryland. He and his team translate Chinese fantasy novels -- often thousands of pages long -- into English. They offer them on his website "gravity tales" -- for free. Kong says it gets two and a half million daily views from readers from all over the world -- one third from the U.S.

RICHARD KONG TRANSLATOR "There's obviously a lot that we don't understand about the Chinese and the Chinese don't understand about us, and hopefully, with our translations, we can get talk started."

Opening another chapter in spreading understanding about China. FRANCES KUO, CGTN.