Executive Overview
In the intricate, often unpredictable ecosystem of international literature, the journey of a book from its original language to global bookshelves is rarely a straight line. It is a process fraught with administrative hurdles, cultural translations, and, on occasion, sheer happenstance. Such is the fascinating case of To the East of the East, a sweeping novel by acclaimed Taiwanese author Ping Lu, translated into English by the celebrated writer and translator Jeremy Tiang.
Nearly a decade after its initial translation was completed, the English-language manuscript of To the East of the East faced the very real threat of permanent dormancy. Commissioned roughly ten years ago by a Taiwanese literary agency and subsequently polished by esteemed editor Anna Holmwood, the project stalled after failing to secure a traditional publishing home. It was only through a chance inquiry by Tiang—who reached out to the translation’s primary funder, the National Museum of Taiwan Literature—that the project was resurrected. Handed over to World Editions, a publishing house renowned for championing international literature, the novel has finally found its audience, offering English readers a dazzling tapestry of shifting identities, historical echoes, and geopolitical borders.
This article explores the genesis of Ping Lu’s imaginative masterpiece, the formidable hurdles encountered during its translation into English, the creative philosophies of its author and translator, and the broader implications of how translated literature finds—or loses—its way in the global literary marketplace.
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Detailed Chronology: From Creative Spark to Resurrected Manuscript
The biography of a translated novel is effectively dual-layered: it encompasses the genesis of the original text and the subsequent, highly technical odyssey of its linguistic rebirth. For To the East of the East, this timeline spans over a decade of creative incubation, administrative silence, and eventual revival.
The Spark of Inspiration
For Ping Lu, writing under her pen name and heralded as one of Taiwan’s most vital literary voices, the conceptual bedrock of the novel began with a meditation on human disconnection. The initial inspiration, as the author describes it, was rooted in the omnipresence of misrecognition and misreading across human experience.
"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," Lu reflects. "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."
This thematic framework allowed Lu to construct a narrative canvas that roams effortlessly across geography and time. The novel weaves through disparate urban hubs—Taipei, Macau, and Beijing—each operating within distinct linguistic and cultural variants of the Chinese language. Furthermore, the narrative leaps fluidly between the contemporary world and the historical depths of the 17th century.
The Initial Translation and Dormancy
The English-language iteration of this sprawling narrative began approximately ten years ago. Contacted by a Taiwanese literary agency, Jeremy Tiang—an accomplished novelist, playwright, and translator who has brought over thirty books from Chinese into English—agreed to take on the project.
Tiang completed the translation over the course of a year. Following his submission, the manuscript underwent a rigorous editing process led by Anna Holmwood, a brilliant editor and accomplished translator in her own right. However, despite a completed translation and professional polish, the book entered a systemic vacuum.
For years, Tiang lost track of the manuscript. It was only during a routine check-in last year with the project’s original funder, the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, that Tiang uncovered a startling reality: no publisher had ever acquired the rights, and the project had officially gone dormant.
The Rescue and Resurrection
Refusing to let a year of meticulous labor and a remarkable work of literature languish in obscurity, Tiang took matters into his own hands. He asked the National Museum of Taiwan Literature for permission to seek a home for the manuscript independently.
Remembering his previous positive experiences with independent publisher World Editions, Tiang sent the manuscript their way. Sensing an immediate synergy with their catalog, World Editions recognized the novel as a natural fit and enthusiastically agreed to bring the book to light. Through this act of literary stewardship, To the East of the East was rescued from the archives and set on a path toward global publication.
Supporting Context & Metrics: The Art and Mechanics of Translation
Translating To the East of the East was far from a straightforward mechanical exercise. It required navigating complex linguistic registers, historical idioms, and deep cultural subtexts.
Navigating Linguistic Registers and Historical Eras
A primary challenge for Tiang was capturing the distinct voices embedded in a narrative that spans centuries and continents. Moving between Taipei, Macau, and Beijing means navigating different inflections, political realities, and vernaculars within the Chinese language itself. Compounding this was the temporal shift from the modern era back to the 17th century.
To render this cohesive in English without flattening the source material required a delicate balancing act of tonal shifts and stylistic agility.
The Riddle of the Heart Radical
Perhaps the most telling window into the intellectual rigor of the translation process involves a seemingly minor scene where two characters discuss a linguistic riddle.
In the original Chinese text, the characters engage in wordplay involving the addition of the "heart radical" (心) to the characters for "burnt troops" (burnt/troops: 焠/兵 or similar structural components discussed in the text), which yields the character for "fragile" (焠/心/etc. interacting to denote vulnerability). For readers entirely unfamiliar with Chinese script, this presents a formidable editorial dilemma: how to make the scene legible without grinding the narrative momentum to a halt.
Tiang ultimately made a bold editorial decision: not to explain the literal mechanics of the Chinese character formation to the English-reading audience. He reasoned that getting bogged down in an intricate linguistic lecture on how Chinese characters are constructed would distract from the narrative’s emotional core.
"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," Tiang explains. "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."
This choice underscores a central tenet of literary translation: prioritizing emotional and narrative resonance over literal, footnoted pedantry.
Authorial Independence and Resonance
Interestingly, the translation process was conducted entirely independently. Ping Lu and Jeremy Tiang did not communicate during the translation phase. Yet, because the world of the novel was so meticulously and vividly constructed by its author, Tiang found that every narrative clue, atmospheric detail, and psychological depth he required was already embedded on the page.
Official Statements: Metaphors and Mirrors of the Novel
To better understand the thematic soul of To the East of the East, both author and translator offer evocative metaphors that encapsulate the reading experience.
Ping Lu: The House of Mirrors
For Ping Lu, the creative process is intimately tied to auditory and visual symmetry. When writing, the author frequently listens to Arvo Pärt’s minimalist masterpiece Spiegel im Spiegel ("Mirror in the Mirror").
"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," Lu states.
This metaphor of "mirrors within mirrors" highlights the novel’s structural obsession with perception, self-deception, and the infinite ways in which human beings reflect—and distort—one another’s realities.
Jeremy Tiang: The Painted Zebra
Jeremy Tiang finds the ultimate metaphor for the novel not in classical music, but in the striking cover art chosen by World Editions.
"The image on the World Editions cover is a pretty great metaphor for the entire novel," Tiang notes. "It appears to be a zebra, but on closer examination, turns out to be a white horse with stripes painted on."
This deceptive creature—only briefly mentioned in the text—serves as a potent symbol for the overarching themes of the narrative. In To the East of the East, appearances are perpetually deceiving, and no character is entirely who they pretend to be, often concealing their true nature even from themselves.
Future Outlook: The Global Trajectory of Taiwanese Literature
The publication journey of To the East of the East serves as both a cautionary tale about the precarity of translated literature and an inspiring testament to the resilience of translators and cultural institutions.
The Fragility of the Translation Pipeline
While major publishing markets regularly churn out domestic fiction, the pipeline for translated works remains narrow and unpredictable. As demonstrated by this project, even when a novel is written by a celebrated author—such as Ping Lu, a recipient of Taiwan’s National Award for the Arts, the Taiwan National Literature Award, and the Wu San-lien Award—and translated by an award-winning practitioner, it can easily slip through the cracks of the commercial publishing apparatus.
The revival of this manuscript was made possible by three crucial factors:
- Institutional Backing: Funding and initial support from the National Museum of Taiwan Literature.
- Translator Advocacy: Jeremy Tiang stepping beyond the traditional bounds of a translator’s role to actively advocate for the manuscript’s placement.
- Independent Publishing Agility: Houses like World Editions that are structurally and editorially positioned to take calculated risks on ambitious international literature.
Expanding the Global Reach of Taiwanese Voices
Ping Lu’s literary footprint is already remarkably international. Her extensive body of work—including novels such as The Gaps (行走的樹), Heart Mandala (黑水世界), Love and Revolution, When Will My Love Return (妳們這群人), and The River Darkens (暗海)—has been translated into French, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Czech, and numerous other languages.
Yet, the successful rescue and upcoming release of To the East of the East in the English-speaking world marks a significant milestone. It bridges a decade-long gap in her English bibliography and introduces a sophisticated, multi-layered exploration of identity, history, and geopolitics to a new readership.
As literary markets increasingly recognize the value of border-crossing narratives, the story of this book stands as a powerful reminder: great literature may sometimes languish in linguistic limbo, but with dedicated advocates, it will ultimately find its way home.
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