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The Eunuch to be published in Chinese
The Eunuch, written by China’s top foreign film actor Jonathan Kos-Read, is a murder-mystery whodunnit set in northern China in the 12th century, and features one of the darkest settings and one of the most intriguing plots I have ever come across. it was a pleasure to get it ready for publication, and it’s done pretty well so far. But the big news is that we have found a publisher for the novel in Chinese. The agreement has not yet been signed, so I won’t mention the name of the publisher, but it is associated with the largest audio book player in the China market, which won’t do it any harm. And the publication date has been tentatively set for March next year.
The story takes place in the imperial palace of the Jin Dynasty in the city today known as Kaifeng. The emperor is a Jurchen, a warrior horse-riding race from Manchuria which attacked the Chinese empire and took over all of northern China. The bloody body of a concubine is found in a corridor just outside the empror’s private quarters, and the questions are who did it, why and how. The detective is the Eunuch, and if he cannot work it out, he is probably himself going to get executed, because the way the murder is done it looks like the emperor did it. If you haven’t ready it yet, I promise you, you will not regret reading it.
But a first novel by an unknown author is always a hard sell, regardless of how good it is. And Jonathan is an unknown in the wide world. But in China, he is not unknown. He has a significant fan base, and over five million fans on various domestic social media channels, including the local variant of TikTok, called Douyin. That is a valuable marketing resource. So we spent some time looking for the right China publisher to work with, one that would understand the value of the author’s profile and the marketing potential he brings to the table. And we found the right partner.
Jonathan, meanwhile, has a team who feed videos onto his China social channels, and they will be working from now to prepare materials to accompany the launch of the Chinese version – almost certainly to be called 金宫案 – in English, it means something like the Case of the Jin Imperial Palace. the name plays off a famous whodunnit book series set in China by another foreign writer – Robert van Gulik, who wrote a series of books about Judge Dee, a magistrate in ancient China who has to solve mysteries and murders in the town he administers. The first book in the series was called 狄公案 – The Case of Judge Dee.
Jonathan Kos-Read has acted in more than 100 Chinese movies and many many TV series, in almost all cases of course playing the baddie. His most recent movie is called Sniper, directed by Zhang Yimou, and features him as an American sniper in the Korean War facing off against a Chinese sniper. Guess who dies in the end.
I first met Jonathan in 2016 when I was invited to moderate a discussion in the late and definitely much lamented bookstore in Beijing called the Bookworm. There were four panelists and the topic was foreign actors in China. Three foreign guys and one lady, but the lady was late. I was immediately struck by the fact that all three guys had solid beards, and I asked if that a requirement for being a foreign actor in China. The answer was yes, although the fourth actor arrived soon after and proved that the beard is actually only a male requirement.
Jonathan was the most articulate of the four, and after the event, he mentioned that he had a manuscript, and as I always say to just about everyone, I said send it along. As I read that early draft of the Eunuch, I was immediately struck by the darkness of the world he had created in the imperial palace, the sense of fear and foreboding, as our hero, the Eunuch detective, tries to figure out who killed the concubine. But the twist was that Jonathan said that he had based the world on the Chinese film industry, and the machinations he had seen and been a part of all through the 20-plus years he has been a part of it. I was hooked.
The next question is, how will Chinese readers respond to a foreign author writing a story set in ancient China? Will it feel appropriate and interesting, or inappropriate and presumptuous? The initial indications are the former, but you never know. The feelings of the Chinese people are sensitive, in a paraphrase of the famous Foreign Ministry phrase. And what of the story? It of course needs to be reviewed before publication. Will all elements of the story pass the test, or will some be viewed as in need of change, to meet China’s special conditions in line with the need to maintain stability and unity. Who knows? But we will soon. Watch this space.