PNM's publication in China derailed
Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 9:02AM Got an email over last weekend from lawyer Michael Tang in NYC, who helped set up the deal with Beijing U Press and worked as part of the translation team, saying that BUP now wanted to renege on our previous deal of cutting only a minimum of wordage regarding the Chinese Communist Party and Taiwan (so long as BUP could caveat the book as reflecting my personal opinions and not reflecting any official BUP stance).
Now, apparently out of fear of recent government sackings of editors who got out of line, BUP's senior managers have returned to their demands that everything mentioning Iraq, Iran and North Korea be removed from the text, otherwise they threaten to abandon the publication, which was set for January (basically, the book is completely set for printing).
Well, I thought about for a few minutes and decided to refuse their demand, instructing Tang to tell them we'd seek publication elsewhere.
I have a couple of options through other friends in China. Neither may pan out, and my agents here in the States have warned me that BUP may simply publish the book with the cuts they desire, pretending it never heard back from me or simply ignoring what I've decided. This is, apparently, an old trick.
If this occurs, I will obtain the Chinese translation of the full book and post it on the web myself, or I will arrange for my own separate translation of the cut parts or the book in its entirety and post one or the other on the web. May take a while, but I will try to do this if this scenario unfolds.
Meanwhile, I will seek out other interested parties in China through the contacts I have, and I will instruct my agents not to approach BUP regarding Blueprint for Action.
Reader Comments (3)
What about trying Hong Kong and counting on export or general internal distributionm - or let the Coms publish what they want and then do the excerpted parts in Hong Kong. There is a good internal 'zamidat' system there.
I like the spirit of this. Let BUP do what it needs to do politically. You just go ahead and put the supposedly troublesome parts on the Net. The Chinese are going to get ALL of PNM, one way or another. By posting the "cut" portions, far from burying them, BUP and whoever is giving them orders will only end up highlighting them. So be it.
It is critical that the Chinese get the uncut Barnett message. You need to get them to buy into the vision as much or more than any other group of people.
You might be interested to know that your 2003 Esquire article is on the 'Net in Mandarin Chinese:
http://www.xslx.com/htm/gjzl/zlps/2003-8-22-14566.htm
The translation looks more or less like the original, though there are a few instances where terminology seems to have befuddled them and they leave out a couple of remarks, such as the one about Bin Laden wanting to restore a 7th century lifestyle.
The best part, though, is the translation of where you say China is "30% Marxist-Leninist and 70% Sopranos", it somehow came out "30% Marxist-Leninist and 70% public consciousness shaped by Communist Party rule". Either they didn't want to translate the Mafia implication, or they aren't "Core" enough to understand the pop culture reference. In any case, I think translation of any work in China is beyond control these days, even by the Chinese government. There are tons of unofficial translations of popular works in China these days.
They also don't make the distinction that the last three countries, China, Russia and India, are "new Core" as opposed to "Gap" nations in your final list, a distinction that you'd hope they'd appreciate.