Ursula K. Le Guin recommends Wu Ming-Yi's THE MAN WITH THE COMPOUND EYES

Everyone on the Grayhawk team was very excited to receive a rare blurb from none other than SF giant Ursula K. Le Guin for Wu Ming-Yi's upcoming novel, The Man with the Compound Eyes. 

UK cover by Joe Wilson

CC Image courtesy of TheNerdPatrol

       

Here it is:

"We haven't read anything like this novel. Ever.

South America gave us magical realism – what is Taiwan giving us? A new way of telling our new reality, beautiful, entertaining, frightening, preposterous, true. Completely unsentimental but never brutal, Wu Ming-Yi treats human vulnerability and the world's vulnerability with fearless tenderness."

Quite a recommendation! And we're not the only ones to think so. After Gray shared his Chinese translation of the blurb yesterday, the Taiwanese edition jumped back into the best seller chart at no 25 on Taiwan's biggest online book shop, books.com.tw! The Man with the Compound Eyes is well on its way to becoming a Taiwanese contemporary classic.

The UK edition comes out at the end of August by Harvill Secker, and Pantheon will publish in the US and Canada next spring. The French edition will be hitting the shops January 2014, courtesy of Editions Stock. Can't wait until then? Why not read an extract of Darryl Sterk's beautiful English translation (and hear the author read the extract in Chinese) as published earlier this year in Asymptote.

Welcome to the Grayhawk Agency blog!

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These are exciting times over here at the Grayhawk Agency HQ, as we launch our blog and very soon, our website. This is where we will keep you updated on the latest news about our list of fantastic authors. So, please keep checking back!

About the agency:

The Grayhawk Agency is one of Asia's leading literary agencies, based in Taipei, Taiwan. Founded in 2008 by Gray Tan, the agency's team of four agents handles translation rights in the Chinese markets on behalf of some of the biggest agencies and publishing houses across Europe and America. Gray first started representing Chinese language authors in 2009, and the agency continues to expand this part of its business, with Anna Holmwood joining the agency in 2012 to work on the list. Gray and Anna are always on the look out for fresh voices from the Chinese-speaking world, stories with vivid characters that evoke the diversity of life lived across the region. We make no claim to represent "Chinese literature" as an entity, but we do believe passionately that great stories know no borders and have the power to travel across the globe.