Foreign books have been flooding China since the May Fourth Movement in 1919. Over the years, translated books have become an important segment of the Chinese publishing industry.

Realizing the huge market potential, international publishers began to establish their presence in China in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Penguin Books, for instance, set up their offices - their first non-native English speaking offices - in Beijing, Shanghai and Jiangmen in Guangdong province, in 2005.

"We made the decision because we felt there was an emerging readership of people interested in quality writing in English and Chinese that was ideally suited to the kinds of books we do best," Jo Lusby, managing director of Penguin China, says in an e-mail reply.

Apart from bringing books from the United Kingdom and the United States to China, Penguin has also tried to present works by Chinese writers to the overseas market, focusing mainly on children's books and classics.

It paid a record high $100,000 (636,000 yuan) for the worldwide English copyright of Chinese bestseller Wolf Totem in 2005, and had Howard Goldblatt translate the book, which won the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize and was described as "the best Chinese book for many years" by British literary magazine Literary Review.

"When we buy books from Chinese authors, we simply look for something that we think is appealing, interesting, and considered the best of its kind, whether it is literature, crime fiction, or memoir," Lusby says.

"We must also be confident that it will successfully make the transition from Chinese into English."

Lu Kai, general manager of McGraw-Hill Education China, emphasizes this point as well, in his e-mail reply to China Daily on the criteria for copyright export. "The most important is its readability - whether it suits the tastes of overseas readers."

Since establishing its Beijing office in 1999, McGraw-Hill Education has been working in partnership with more than 100 Chinese publishers on copyright trading, primarily covering areas of education and professional development.

Lu explains that the Chinese mindset is inclined to deduction and could therefore easily accept abstract concepts, while Western readers are more used to inductive thinking and understanding concepts through analysis and examples.

"This is why special attention should be paid to explaining profound theories in simple terms and through examples, when we try to introduce overseas readers to the Chinese contents they are unfamiliar with," he says.

Zhu Qifei, Greater China senior business development manager of Cambridge University Press, says it might be difficult for exported titles to do well, since not too many Chinese subjects could arouse the interest of or strike a chord with Western readers.

"In view of this, Chinese publishers could also consider cooperating with their international counterparts to create books particularly tailored to the overseas market."

Both Lu and Zhu point out the need to foster a group of Chinese writers with an international outlook and influence.

Lusby says for Penguin, the strategy is to develop the English-language profile and visibility of Chinese authors first, before presenting their books into the world stage.

"We can use our Beijing base to bridge the gap between Chinese-speaking writers in China and English-speaking readers in England," she says.

More recently, Penguin has gone further to work with Chinese publishers to co-publish Chinese-language books - their first fruit is tennis star Li Na's autobiography Playing Alone.

According to Lusby, by 2013, Penguin will have more than 160 Chinese titles in print as part of its co-publishing program.

Lu says the campaign to globalize Chinese books systematically was launched less than a decade ago, thus, it will take time for overseas readers to learn about Chinese books and for the Chinese publishing industry to adapt itself to the overseas market.

"It is really just a question of time, at this stage," Lusby agrees.

"Readers overseas are reading books from China in greater numbers than ever before, although the development of new areas of literature is still a slow process."

yangguang@chinadaily.com.cn