The Australian authors proving a hit in China
From Thomas Keneally of Schindler’s Ark to John Marsden of Tomorrow When the War Began, writers are helping to boost exports from Down Under
Australia sends a lot of things to China: iron ore, lithium, wine, meat. And now, China is also the country’s biggest market for books, with more contracts for Australian-penned stories signed with publishers in China than in either the United States or Britain.
Australian Writers’ Week in China has just finished up. This was its tenth year and some of Australia’s heaviest-hitting authors were there to celebrate: Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler’s Ark (which was made into the film Schindler’s List), Geraldine Brooks and teen author John Marsden, best known for his Tomorrow When the War Began teen series about a group of young people fighting foreign invaders in Australia.
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But according to The Sydney Morning Herald, the real show-stopper was Aboriginal children’s author Bronwyn Bancroft, who ended up in tears after a reading at a primary school where the children burst into applause. The event visited eight cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Harbin, Xian, Chengdu, Suzhou, Hohhot and Guangzhou.
Australian ambassador Jan Adams said: “Over the past decade Australian Writers’ Week in China has seen many of Australia’s most exciting authors travel to China, to share their stories with Chinese audiences and celebrate contemporary Australian writing”.
They have included poet Les Murray, Kate Grenville and Tim Flannery.
In the 13 years to 2015 some 3,200 Australian titles were translated into Chinese. From 1981 to 1988 that figure was 15.
