Executive Overview
In the ecosystem of contemporary international literature, the journey of a book from its original language to a global English-speaking readership is rarely linear. Yet, the path traveled by acclaimed Taiwanese author Ping Lu’s novel To the East of the East—and its English translation by Jeremy Tiang—represents an extraordinary tale of near-loss, bureaucratic limbo, and a fortuitous, independent revival. Nearly a decade after its translation was first commissioned, the English edition of the novel has finally found a stable home with World Editions, largely due to the persistence of its translator.
This article explores the genesis of To the East of the East, the profound linguistic and cultural hurdles faced during its translation, and the broader systemic vulnerabilities inherent in funding and publishing translated works across international borders. Drawing from exclusive insights provided by both author and translator, we trace the architecture of a cross-cultural masterpiece that bridges centuries, geographies, and linguistic registers, while offering a sobering look at how translated literature can quietly slip through the cracks of the global literary market.
Detailed Chronology: From Original Spark to World Editions
The biography of To the East of the East is defined by distinct phases of creation, dormancy, and unexpected resurrection. Understanding this timeline illuminates the often-invisible labor required to bring world literature into English.
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Phase 1: The Germ of Inspiration and the Original Text
The creative genesis of the novel began with Ping Lu—the pen name of celebrated Taiwanese writer Lu Ping—who sought to map the complex emotional topography of human misunderstanding. According to the author, the initial spark was the overwhelming realization of how many "misrecognitions and misreadings" permeate human existence. This conceptual framework extended far beyond interpersonal relationships between men and women, parents and children, and husbands and wives. Instead, Lu expanded these fractures into a vast imaginative landscape, exploring the tension between the ocean and the land, the states of being adrift versus scattering apart, the dichotomy of imprisonment and escape, and the fragile boundaries dividing containment from freedom.
Phase 2: The Initial Commission and Translation (Mid-2010s)
Roughly ten years ago, the machinery of international literary exchange stirred into motion when a Taiwanese literary agency approached translator Jeremy Tiang with a proposal to translate To the East of the East into English. Having previously collaborated with the agency, and recognizing the literary weight of the project, Tiang accepted the commission. Over the course of the following year, he immersed himself in the text, completing the English manuscript.
Upon submission, the manuscript underwent a rigorous editing process led by Anna Holmwood—a distinguished editor and highly accomplished literary translator in her own right. With a polished translation in hand, the project appeared to be advancing toward publication. However, the momentum abruptly stalled. As is common in the complex world of international publishing rights and subsidized translation projects, the book drifted out of the public eye. Tiang lost track of its trajectory, assuming it was slowly making its way through editorial pipelines.
Phase 3: The Dormancy Period
Last year, driven by curiosity, Tiang checked in with the project’s primary institutional funder: the National Museum of Taiwan Literature. To his surprise, he discovered that despite the completed translation and editorial work, no commercial publisher had ever acquired the English-language rights. The book had fallen into a bureaucratic blind spot, and the project was now entirely dormant.
Rather than letting the translation languish indefinitely on a digital hard drive, Tiang decided to take matters into his own hands. Leveraging his existing professional relationships within the independent publishing sector, he sent the manuscript to World Editions—a publishing house known for championing international literature. Recognizing that the stylistically adventurous novel aligned perfectly with their editorial mission, World Editions proved eager to rescue the project, finally securing a permanent home for the long-lost manuscript.
Supporting Context & Metrics: Navigating Linguistic and Cultural Chasms
Translating a text as intricate as To the East of the East requires an extraordinary degree of linguistic dexterity. The novel does not merely cross temporal and physical borders; it operates within a hyper-localized matrix of dialects and historical eras.
Linguistic Stratigraphy: Taipei, Macau, and Beijing
One of the primary challenges identified by Jeremy Tiang was the novel’s geographical range. The narrative roams fluidly between Taipei, Macau, and Beijing—three distinct cultural hubs that utilize markedly different variants of the Chinese language. Furthermore, the narrative leaps across centuries, shifting between the present day and the seventeenth century.
To honor this scope, Tiang had to expertly navigate a diverse array of linguistic registers. Capturing the distinct voices of the original required a nuanced ear for cadence, tone, and regional idiom, ensuring that the prose reflected the psychological and historical shifts embedded in the source text.
The Untranslatable Riddle: Form Versus Function
Perhaps the most telling challenge of the translation process involved a seemingly minor scene: a dialogue where two characters discuss a traditional Chinese character riddle.
In the original Chinese scene, a character constructs a riddle by adding a heart radical ($heartsuit$, xīn) to the characters for "burnt troops" ($textburnt + texttroops$, bīng-shī), which structurally transforms the compound into the character for "fragile" ($textfragile$, jiāo-cuì).
This posed a classic translator’s dilemma: How does one render a visual and structural Chinese character riddle legible to an English-speaking audience unfamiliar with Chinese radical formations?
Tiang’s solution was rooted in literary pragmatism. Rather than bogging down the narrative with an overly intricate, pedantic explanation of how Chinese characters are constructed, Tiang chose not to explain the mechanics of the riddle at all. He recognized that pausing the narrative flow for a linguistics lesson would detract from the scene’s emotional core.
Within the narrative, the riddle is not a puzzle for the reader to solve; it is a thinly veiled rhetorical device. The female character is using the riddle to allude to her own emotional fragility as a sophisticated form of flirtation with her male interlocutor. By prioritizing the effect of the riddle over its technical mechanics—transitioning the reader’s focus from a violent, fiery battle to a profound sense of delicate vulnerability—Tiang preserved the psychological intimacy of the scene without sacrificing narrative momentum.
Official Statements & Perspectives: Authorial Independence and Metaphorical Mirrors
The collaborative dynamic—or lack thereof—between Ping Lu and Jeremy Tiang highlights an intriguing reality of literary translation: deep resonance can occur across languages without direct, real-time consultation.
The Autonomy of the Translator
When asked about her involvement in the English translation, Ping Lu noted a striking division of labor:
"The translator worked independently, and I wasn’t involved in the translation process."
Despite this lack of direct communication, Tiang felt no deficit of guidance. The internal logic and atmospheric richness of the source material were so thoroughly established that he found all necessary direction embedded directly within the pages of the original text. As Tiang reflected:
"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 I needed was right there on the page."
Metaphors of Reflection and Deception
To fully grasp the thematic architecture of To the East of the East, both author and translator turn to potent artistic metaphors.
For Ping Lu, the creative process is deeply intertwined with musical minimalism. When writing, she frequently listens to Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in the Mirror). The piece serves as the structural ideal for her prose:
"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."
Meanwhile, Jeremy Tiang points to the striking visual chosen for the World Editions book cover as the ultimate metaphor for the novel. The cover features what appears to be a zebra, but upon closer inspection, reveals itself to be a white horse with painted stripes.
Though this deceptive creature is only briefly mentioned once within the narrative, Tiang argues it holds a powerful symbolic connection to the overarching themes of the novel:
"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 Legacy of To the East of the East
The eventual publication of To the East of the East in English represents a major victory for international literature, yet it also serves as a cautionary tale for arts funding bodies and publishers worldwide. A completed, professionally edited translation languishing in dormancy for years underscores a systemic vulnerability in the dissemination of translated works. Without dedicated advocates within the industry—such as a persistent translator willing to act as an unscripted literary agent—countless works of global significance risk being lost to administrative oversight.
With World Editions stepping in to champion the novel, Ping Lu’s intricate web of mirrors, historical echoes, and linguistic dexterity will finally reach the wider readership it has long deserved. For Ping Lu—whose expansive bibliography includes acclaimed works such as The Gaps (winner of the Taiwan National Literature Award), Heart Mandala (recipient of the Golden Tripod Award), Love and Revolution, When Will My Love Return, and The River Darkens, all translated into numerous languages—this English edition adds a vital new dimension to her global literary footprint.
Similarly, for Jeremy Tiang—whose impressive translation catalog includes Zou Jingzhi’s Ninth Building (longlisted for the International Booker Prize) and whose original novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize—this rescue mission underscores the profound stewardship translators often exercise over the literary property entrusted to them.
As To the East of the East finally makes its long-awaited debut in the English-speaking world, it stands not only as a brilliant literary achievement in its own right, but as a testament to the resilience required to bring stories across the vast, often treacherous waters dividing the East of the East from the rest of the world.
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