International
Fiction Bestsellers
Of Love and
War
Formerly
Exiled Korean Writer Revisits Vietnam, While France's
Frèches Hits The Silk Road
FROM PUBLISHING TRENDS (FEBRUARY 2004)
One
of South Korea’s best-known writers, Hwang Sok-Yong,
has found a fervent audience in France for his monumental
and controversial literary portraits denouncing “both
corruption and American imperialism” in the Vietnam
and Korean wars. In The Shadow of Arms — “a requiem
worthy of Faulkner” — Anh Yeong-Kyu is a young Korean
corporal drafted into the Allied Forces’ investigation
unit in Southern Vietnam, just after the Tet Offensive.
A witness to black market dealings, the sordid commercial
opportunism that accompanied the war, and the humiliation
and death of a Vietnamese colleague, Yeong-Kyu grows
bitter and detached at the thought of participating
in someone else’s war. The author himself reluctantly
fought for the American cause as part of Korea’s military
corps in Vietnam, and was responsible for erasing the
proof of civilian massacres. Inspired by Che Guevara
and Franz Fanon, Sok-Yong asserts that his writings
are different from American books and films he has read
or seen on the subject in that he asks global questions
about war, its origins, and its place in history, while
others exclude the Vietnamese from their representations,
resulting in abstractions and “mere ambiguous humanism
from the point of view of a white man.” His first novel,
Dr. Han, is the story of a family separated in
the Korean war. The Guest —slated for publication
by Zulma (France) this year — is a novel about
an actual massacre in North Korea wrongly attributed
to American forces. Exiled Sok-Yong came to New York
and was subsequently imprisoned upon his return to Seoul.
Several members of a company were killed while performing
one of his plays during the 1980 Kwangju uprising. With
his recent launch of a satellite television station,
CTV, which broadcasts to the whole of Korea, Japan,
and half of China, Sok-Yong continues to speak out against
the rise of the “American hegemony” (suggesting an Asian-European
alliance in the interests of a new world order). Rights
for The Guest and Dr. Han have been translated
into several Asian languages and have been sold to DTV
(Germany). Contact Fabienne Trunyo at Zulma
(France) for Western translation rights.
Love blossoms at the jungle gym in Katarina Mazetti’s
latest, Tarzan’s Tears, which hits the list in
Sweden. A poor mother of two meets a wealthy technology
consultant on the swings, knocking him off his feet
— quite literally. Mariana is already married, but her
husband’s battle with schizophrenia is taking a toll
on the family, while the debonaire Janne offers her
a constancy she couldn’t even imagine. Mariana returns
to a little cottage that she is sharing with her friend
Jenny and their four children for the weekend, assuming
she will never see the eligible bachelor again. When
Jenny offers to babysit one night, Mariana heads to
a local restaurant, but is stopped in her tracks by
another fortuitous encounter with Janne (who dubs her
“Tarzan” after her swing stunt). Drawn to each other
despite their very different lifestyles (he’s a bit
too sophisticated for her kids’ birthday parties at
Burger King, and she finds him devoid of passion), they
eventually make some sense of their rather quirky love
affair. Rights have been sold to Piper (Germany)
and Pax (Norway), while rights to her earlier
book, The Boy Next Grave (about a love affair
that starts in a cemetery), have been sold to Svea
(Bulgaria), Lindhardt & Ringhof (Denmark),
Adriano Salani (Italy), Arena (Netherlands),
Text (Russia), and more. Contact AnnaKaisa
Danielsson at Alfabeta (Sweden).
Tána
Keleová-Vasilková has become a mainstay on the Slovak
bestseller list with her own version of “chick lit”
that highlights the extraordinary qualities of seemingly
ordinary women. The Wives records a year in the
lives of four high school friends — their daily struggles,
desires, and disappointments, as well as changes in
their relationships with husbands and partners. Also
making the grade is The Spider’s Web, in which
Blanka, a young and successful actress, protects her
personal life so fastidiously that even her closest
friends and colleagues do not know what secrets she
hides. While trying to protect herself and her young
daughter, Blanka entangles herself in a web of lies
from which she cannot escape. Rights to all nine of
Keleová-Vasilková’s novels are available from Zuzana
Sersenova at Ikar (Slovak Republic).
Basque author, playwright, and screenwriter Toti
Martínez de Lezea reconstructs famous tales of the
misfortunes of medieval Spain in The Commoner.
In 1511, María de Pacheco is forced by her father to
marry Juan de Padilla, whose social position is inferior
to hers. Nevertheless, the two fall in love as they
lead the insurrection of Castille. For defending the
rights of their people against the troops of Carlos
I, María, a rebellious and powerful woman, is sent into
exile in Portugal. Rights to the author’s earlier novels,
The Abbess (the tale of an illegitimate daughter
who is abducted and taken to a convent where she becomes
Abbess of las Huelgas de Burgos) and The Herbalist
(which recreates the persecution of the Inquisition),
have been sold to Krüger (Germany), while The
Sons of Ogaiz (the story of two brothers’ struggle
to survive in Basque Country during the Black Plague)
has been sold to Elkar (France). Contact Sophie
Legrand at ACER (Spain).
The year is 655, and the court of the emperor of China
is in turmoil in French author José Frčches’
new three-volume saga The Silk Empress. A beautiful
courtesan of humble origins, Wuzhao, is set to marry
the young emperor Gaozong, of the Tang Dynasty. Wuzhao
aspires to wield power like an emperor and uses Buddhism
to gain allies. What ensues is a study of the role of
religion and cultural exchange along the Silk Road —
the sole, fragile link between East and West, where
the struggle for religious dominance is waged over the
souls of the faithful. Frčches combines fictitious characters
with historical figures (as in his first trilogy about
ancient China, The Legend of the Jade — “prodigious
historical adventure novels of this caliber are rare”
— which has sold more than 310,000 copies in France).
He has been published in Poland (Albatros), the
Czech Republic (Alpress S.R.O.), Greece (Chadjinikoli),
Germany (Verlagsgruppe Random), and Brasil (Objetiva).
Contact Axelle Hardy at XO (France).
©2004
Publishing Trends
