Taking Chinese Literature to the World: Harvey Thomlinson of Make Do Publishing

Selling Chinese literature to the English-speaking world is tough – especially when it’s by contemporary authors little known outside China. But Harvey Thomlinson is doing just that, with his new Hong Kong-based venture Make Do Publishing. On the eve of his appearance at the Bookworm Literary Festival, Dan Edwards talks to Harvey about Make Do and China’s online writing revolution.

Can you tell me a bit about your background? I understand you founded the Make Do Studios website?
About five years ago I was back in the UK – I’d previously been in Beijing for about four years – and I became aware that the selection of Chinese fiction available in bookshops was limited to a couple of genres like Cultural Revolution memoirs and Shanghai Baby-style chick lit with an orientalising slant. There was a whole group of genres and writers that were marginalised within US and UK publishing. So I founded the Make Do Studios website to promote a broader range of authors.

Last year I took Make Do Studios to the next level and set up a publishing imprint in Hong Kong called Make Do Publishing.

So your imprint will exclusively publish Chinese novelists in English?
Exactly. We’re starting with a series of modern Chinese masters. Each one is going to be a short novel with an author afterword and critical essay about the writer. The first volume was Yu Li -Confessions of an Elevator Operator by a Beijing author called Jimmy Qi. It’s a very funny story about a ming gong – a migrant worker – who comes to Beijing and works as a lift operator in a very classy apartment building full of celebrities, VIPs and party bosses.

Our next title was I Love My Mum by Chen Xi Wo, who’s been published in Taiwan, but hasn’t been published on the mainland. He spent some time working in Japan as a mama san [laughs], and his books tend to have very bizarre sexual content.

Our latest title is Murong’s best-selling novel Leave Me Alone – A Novel of Chengdu.

Murong is one of the best known of China’s internet writers. Do you think the phenomenon of online writing has changed the direction of Chinese literature in the past decade?
I think it has certainly broken up the mix and provided some revitalisation, providing an outlet that was much needed. There are really two types of writers in China. One is the official writers – zuo zhe – most of whom belong to the Chinese Writers’ Association. If you belong to that it’s like having a job – you get a salary just for belonging. Then there are other writers like Murong, and many others who do not belong – or chose not to belong – to that association. Murong was actually invited to join but declined. They don’t have any of the support that official writers enjoy in terms of official favour, getting in with the big publishers, being promoted at book fairs and that kind of thing.

Given the limited opportunities to publish certain types of work in other forms in China, do you think there is more quality writing online than in other countries?
It’s an interesting question. I think it’s hard to quantify, but my impression is that the situation in China is, to some extent, unique. I’m not really sure why that is.

There could well be historical reasons for this. I think the roots of literary culture maybe go deeper in China. If you know your Chinese history you’ll know that in feudal times the ability to compose poetry and elegant prose was part of the examination to become an official. I think it’s retained that image of being part of the make up of a cultured or university-educated person more than in many other places. There are websites like Rongshuxia where there are thousands and thousands of postings of novels and stories. Maybe that’s a sheer matter of numbers in part, but I think the internet literature phenomenon has probably met a need as well. It was probably a conjunction of the platform and the right social conditions that saw these authors to emerge.

Harvey Thomlinson will appear in conversation with Murong Xuecun and Dan Edwards of theBeijinger.com at The Bookworm Literary Festival, 7.30pm, Sunday, March 7. RMB 50.

Make Do publishing titles are available from the Bookworm, or can be ordered online here.