Chinese books in the political category have been gaining more and more attention in recent years, political advisor Huang Youyi said in an interview with China.org.cn on Saturday in Beijing.

Huang Youyi, a member of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, speaks to a China.org.cn reporter in Beijing on March 7, 2015. [China.org.cn]

Huang is the former vice president of the China International Publishing Group (CIPG) and the vice chairman and secretary-general of the Translators Association of China. He is attending the third annual session of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

"First, foreign countries want to know how China has maintained long-term and stable development. What is the key? What did the government depend on? How did the Communist Party of China get the support of the people?" Huang explained. "They want to learn from our experience, and are paying more and more attention."

"Second, they also pay attention to China's economic development. We often talk about opening up and reform. Many developing countries ask: where did you start when you launched your reform? Why did you start from the rural areas? What difficulties did you encounter and how did you resolve them? And how did you think of building the Free Trade Zone in Shanghai? Can you elaborate?"

The outstanding example is the book "Xi Jinping: The Governance of China," which was released by China International Publishing Group last year and its nine foreign language versions have sold more than 300,000 copies.

"This book's popularity is stunning," Huang said. "This is the best selling Chinese-themed book overseas in 40 years. The previous books that reached the same level of success are all books by Chairman Mao Zedong. "

So, nowadays, "Chinese books in the political category and reform category have witnessed a huge rise in demand. Previously, the most popular Chinese books were about traditional Chinese medicine, traditional culture and classic literature, which people still love," he said. "Different readers from different countries have different focuses. For example, India may pay more attention to the Chinese economy, whereas Sri Lanka may be more interested in Chinese culture, so there is huge market potential and demand overseas. Sometimes we asked why we can't export our books to other countries, now I understand it was because we didn't give people what they really wanted. "

Foreign countries have continued to pay attention to China's development, "We have demands, which require us to tell about our country and our leaders' propositions. The translation should be done in a better and more timely fashion so that foreigners can understand better."

Besides books in the political category, modern Chinese literature is also gaining a surge of attention, from Mo Yan's Nobel-prized novels, to the wildly popular "Wolf Totem" to the Chinese science fiction work "The Three Body Problem," the English version of which was released in the United States last year and was nominated in the 2014 Nebula Awards in February.

"In the past, foreign readers only paid attention to China's ancient classics," Huang explained, "Now they want to know how the modern people live and the literature is a reflection of the living culture."

"The movie adaptation of 'Wolf Totem' also teaches us how to make a good book more international and more accepted by the international audience," he said. "Wolf Totem," directed by French director Jean-Jacques Annaud, has grossed more than US$100 million on the Chinese mainland and has received mostly positive reviews.

"We will attach importance to collaboration with foreign partners from the beginning when we want to export our cultural products. China's publishing industry and cultural sector have become more and more international. This is just beginning," Huang added.

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