Chinese
Rights sold for Vincent Calvino private eye series
Canadian
novelist Christopher Moore, once described by the Toronto Globe and
Mail as the Hemingway of Bangkok, has sold the Chinese language rights
to Spirit House and Cold Hit to Beijing based publisher China Youth
Publishing House. Spirit House has been translated into German
(Unionsverlag) and Japanese (Kodansha Ltd.) and the German edition of
Cold Hit will be released by Swiss based Unionsverlag in Spring, 2001.
Senior
officials at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, have confirmed that this is
one of, if
not the first, publishing of a major detective series by a living
English speaking writer in the Chinese language anywhere in China.
Mr.
Christopher Runckel, a former First Secretary at the US Embassy in
Bangkok, was instrumental in brokering the rights sale. Mr. Runckel
said, “The publishing of the Calvino series by the China Youth
Publishing House represents a continued opening to outside ideas by
China's young people. This openness is demonstrated by Chinese
fascination with the Internet which is growing at a faster
rate in China than anywhere else in the world.”
Mr. Runckel,
who currently heads www.business-in-asia.com, also emphasized the
positive
political implications arising out of The Calvino Chinese language
right
sale, “The way in which the contract negotiations and signing were
handled
with the China Youth Publishing House readily accepting all the
standard
international legal protections for the author so quickly following
China's
WTO agreement demonstrates that Chinese companies and their
government's
more serious determination to improve copyright protection of
intellectual
property."
Christopher
G. Moore, the author of 13 novels , four plays, and a Thai language
book,
has lived in SE Asia for a dozen years, where he collaborated on
numerous
projects in Bangkok with Hollywood screenwriting legend Stirling
Silliphant
(Oscar winner for In the Heat of the Night) who was an admirer of
Moore’s
A Killing Smile.
Moore's
books, notably the four volume Land of Smiles series and the six volume
Calvino detective series, have won him a cult following in Asia where
he has been at the cutting-edge of the e-sales revolution in commerce.
His web site: www.cgmooore.com
draws hundreds of visitors daily.
The Chinese
editions of Spirit House and Cold Hit are expected to be released in
2001.
___________________________________________________________
For Mr. Moore exclusive interview, click here
For further
information, email: manager@heavenlakepress.com
or visite
website:www.cgmoore.com
