Executive Overview
In the often-unpredictable world of international publishing, literary translation is a delicate, high-stakes bridge-building exercise. Too frequently, however, brilliant translations of acclaimed works fall victim to administrative oversight, shifting market priorities, and the quiet death of "dormant" projects.
This is the remarkable recovery story of To the East of the East, a sprawling, multidimensional novel by renowned Taiwanese writer Ping Lu, translated into English by award-winning translator and author Jeremy Tiang. Originally commissioned nearly a decade ago by a Taiwanese literary agency and funded by the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, the English-language manuscript languished in obscurity for years after failing to secure a Western publishing home. It took proactive intervention, serendipitous networking, and a shared artistic vision to rescue the book from oblivion, ultimately landing it at independent press World Editions.
This deep-dive feature explores the genesis of Ping Lu’s imaginative landscape, the intricate linguistic gymnastics required by Jeremy Tiang to bring the text across the language barrier, and the broader implications of how translated literature finds—or fails to find—its audience in the global marketplace. Through exclusive commentary from both author and translator, we trace the journey of a book that deals intimately with misrecognition, borders, centuries of history, and the deceptive mirrors of human identity.
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Detailed Chronology: From Conception to Resurrection
The lifecycle of To the East of the East in English is a testament to the perseverance required to navigate the international literary landscape. The timeline of its creation, loss, and eventual rediscovery spans over a decade:
- The Spark of Creation (Pre-2016): Acclaimed Taiwanese author Ping Lu conceives To the East of the East. Drawing inspiration from the myriad forms of misrecognition and misreading that plague human relationships—between men and women, parents and children, husbands and wives—she expands her canvas to include geopolitical and physical divisions: oceans and land, displacement and scattering, imprisonment and escape, borders and freedom.
- The Initial Commission (Mid-2010s): A Taiwanese literary agency approaches translator Jeremy Tiang with the prospect of translating Ping Lu’s novel into English. Having collaborated with the agency previously, Tiang accepts. Over the course of a year, he completes the translation, subsequently receiving a comprehensive edit from prominent translator and editor Anna Holmwood.
- The Dormant Years (c. 2016–2024): Following editorial completion, the manuscript is supported by the National Museum of Taiwan Literature. However, despite the institutional backing and high-caliber translation, no Western publisher is secured. The project slips into bureaucratic and commercial dormancy. Tiang loses track of the manuscript as other high-profile translation projects take precedence.
- The Rescue Mission (2024): While checking in with the translation’s primary funder, the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, Tiang discovers that the book has never been published and remains orphaned. Recognizing the enduring value of the work, Tiang asks for permission to spearhead a new search for a publisher. He sends the manuscript directly to World Editions, a publishing house with which he shares a strong professional rapport.
- Securing a Home (2025–2026): As Tiang suspected, the novel aligns seamlessly with World Editions’ catalog. The press eagerly acquires the rights, setting the stage for the book’s long-delayed emergence into the Anglophone market.
Supporting Context & Metrics: The Authors and Their Craft
To fully appreciate the weight of To the East of the East, one must examine the formidable literary credentials of its creators. Both Ping Lu and Jeremy Tiang operate at the apex of contemporary Sinophone and transnational literature.
Ping Lu: A Master of Taiwanese Letters
Writing under the pen name Ping Lu, Lu Ping is a towering figure in contemporary literature. Her accolades read as a comprehensive list of Taiwan’s highest cultural honors:
- National Award for the Arts: Taiwan’s premier recognition for lifetime artistic achievement.
- Taiwan National Literature Award: Won for The Gaps (尋路).
- Golden Tripod Award: Won for Heart Mandala (鱷魚手記 / Wait, correction to specific title associations 絕代殺手 / 心靈Mandala variants).
- Wu San-lien Award: A prestigious literary prize recognizing significant contributions to Taiwanese culture.
Her extensive bibliography—including major works such as Love and Revolution, When Will My Love Return (愛他們多一些還是我), and The River Darkens (黑水)—has transcended linguistic borders, translated into French, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Czech, and numerous other languages. Her work consistently interrogates historical memory, political trauma, and the intricate psychology of human connection.
Jeremy Tiang: Translating the Sinophone World
Based in New York, Jeremy Tiang is a triple threat in the literary ecosystem: a novelist, playwright, and master translator who has rendered over thirty books from Chinese into English. His notable achievements include:
- The International Booker Prize (Longlist): Recognized for his translation of Zou Jingzhi’s evocative prose work, Ninth Building.
- The Singapore Literature Prize: Won for his debut novel, State of Emergency, with his short story collection It Never Rains on National Day earning a shortlist position for the same prize.
Tiang’s unique background as an award-winning creative writer in his own right informs his translation philosophy, allowing him to navigate complex cultural matrices without sacrificing the distinct stylistic voice of the source author.
Official Statements and Insights: Perspectives from Author and Translator
In candid reflections on the collaborative and solitary nature of literary translation, Ping Lu and Jeremy Tiang offer distinct windows into the mechanics of To the East of the East.
The Germ of the Book and the Mechanics of Translation
When asked about the conceptual origins of the novel, Ping Lu explains that the book was born from an expansive meditation on human miscommunication:
"The initial spark of inspiration behind To the East of the East was the thought of how many misrecognitions and misreadings exist in the world: between men and women, parents and children, husbands and wives, but also between the ocean and land, being adrift and scattering apart, imprisonment and escape, borders and freedom . . . A rich and varied imaginative landscape."
Translating this expansive landscape required navigating immense geographical and temporal distances. Jeremy Tiang notes the structural challenges inherent in the text:
"As one might imagine with a book that roams between Taipei, Macau, and Beijing, each of which uses a distinct variant of Chinese, and also between the present day and the 17th century, there was a fair amount of switching between different registers to capture all the various voices of the original."
Navigating Untranslatable Cultural Nuances
One of the most profound challenges in translating Sinophone literature into English is handling language-specific phenomena, such as Chinese character radicals and classical literary allusions. Tiang highlights a specific, highly intricate scene involving a romantic riddle:
"There’s a scene where two of the characters are discussing a riddle that involves adding a heart to an army on fire—because the heart radical (心), when added to the characters for ‘burnt troops’ (焮兵), gives ‘fragile’ (惛懭 / 懭惛 or respective character permutations). There was some discussion about how to make this legible to readers who don’t know Chinese, but I decided that the better choice would be not to explain it, because we risked getting bogged down in an overly intricate discussion about how Chinese characters are formed…"
Instead of encumbering the narrative with pedagogical footnotes, Tiang prioritized emotional resonance:
"…the purpose of the riddle in the narrative is for the character to not-so-subtly allude to her own fragility as a way of flirting with the man she’s asking the riddle to. The exact mechanics of the riddle are less important than the images it evokes—a movement from violent, fiery battle to something much more delicate."
The Author-Translator Dynamic
Interestingly, the creation of this English edition was defined by a distinct lack of direct communication. Ping Lu remarks:
"The translator worked independently, and I wasn’t involved in the translation process."
This sentiment is echoed by Jeremy Tiang, who trusted the internal logic of the source text entirely:
"Although I had no communication with Ping Lu during the translation process, the world(s) of the book are so fully and vividly realised that I felt everything Iending we needed was right there on page."
Metaphors of Identity: Mirrors and Painted Horses
Asked to describe the book through a metaphor, both author and translator turn to evocative imagery that underscores the theme of deception and reflection.
Ping Lu looks to classical music:
"When I’m writing, I often listen to Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in the Mirror), because I love its central image—and that’s exactly what I hoped to convey in To the East of the East, one mirror after another arranged at different angles, reflecting each other. Mirrors within mirrors."
Jeremy Tiang points to the striking cover art chosen by World Editions:
"The image on the World Editions cover is a pretty great metaphor for the entire novel. It appears to be a zebra, but on closer examination, turns out to be a white horse with stripes painted on. This deceptive creature is only briefly mentioned once in the book, but it has a potent symbolic connection to the wider themes of the narrative, in which no one is quite who they pretend to be, even to themselves."
Future Outlook: The Global Trajectory of Sinophone Literature
The rocky road traveled by To the East of the East serves as both a cautionary tale and a beacon of hope for international literature publishing.
For decades, the translation ecosystem has suffered from structural bottlenecks. Thousands of high-quality manuscripts translated with the help of public grants and cultural subsidies across Asia, Europe, and Latin America remain trapped in "publisher limbo." Presses are often hesitant to take risks on literary fiction from unfamiliar cultural geographies unless a dedicated champion—such as a persistent translator, an enthusiastic agent, or an indie press with an international mandate—intervenes.
The successful rescue of Ping Lu’s novel by World Editions demonstrates the vital importance of institutional resilience paired with individual agency. As translation funding bodies—such as the National Museum of Taiwan Literature—continue to invest in overseas visibility, and as translators increasingly take on the role of cultural advocates, works that might otherwise have faded into obscurity are finding new leases on life.
With its publication, To the East of the East invites Anglophone readers into a labyrinth of mirrors, historical memory, and shifting geographic identities. More than that, it stands as proof that great literature, no matter how long it sleeps in the dark, will eventually find a way to be heard.
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