Yanqing Novel Goodbye My Princess Licensed by Simon & Schuster

[douqi]

A couple of days ago, Alyza Liu, an editor at Simon & Schuster, announced on Twitter that she'd acquired world English rights for the yanqing novel Goodbye My Princess by Fei Wo Si Chun, on which the 2019 drama of the same title is based. The English version of the novel will be out in June 2025.

I find this intriguing because it is, as far as I know, the first time a Big 5 publisher has acquired a title from the pulpier, romance end of Chinese genre publishing (please correct me if I'm wrong on this). The other genre novels I know of (famously, Liu Cixin's Three-Body Problem) that have been given this treatment tend to be the 'respectable', more 'literary' ones. My view is that I would love to see more English translations of c-webnovels being brought out via this model instead of the by-now-familiar light novels pipeline (Fitzcarraldo to license a c-webnovel?? one can dream). I'm interested in seeing how they manage the translation process and what the quality of the final product is.

I had a quick search about Fei Wo Si Chun, and she seems to have a number of 'serious writer' accolades, including once serving as vice-president of the Hubei Writers' Association. A number of her novels seem to have been published traditionally, including this one (again, please correct me if I'm wrong; the data is quite hard to find on a basic internet search). But at least some of her works were definitely first serialised online, likely on JJWXC — I found her profile here. Intriguingly, her Baike entry suggests that she once released a danmei novel online, but I haven't been able to find out anything else about it (admittedly after a very cursory search).

Comments

[lessonsinescapology]

Interesting. I only know of the Cdrama which was a hit at the time.

[llonkrebboj]

Oh yeah! I saw that twitter announcement of hers \o/.The FWSC novel adapted to become Goodbye My Princess), 东宫, was a traditionally published 2010 novel that was quite popular in its time. I have an impression of seeing it on shelves alongside novels by Tong Hua (i.e. author of Scarlet Heart, Ballad of the Desert, Lost You Forever etc.) in 2011/12.

Tbh I thought all of her novels were traditionally published. It's cool to hear she had an online presence too!

Can't believe 东宫 will be the first to get an English translation xD.

[douqi]

Yeah, her Baike profile suggests at least some of her early work was initially serialised online before being published in print. For e.g. you can see 芙蓉簟 still on her JJWXC page, although it's locked, plus the first draft of 寂寞空庭春欲晚.

[llonkrebboj]

👀 I think at least one or two of them were on the English language cnovel recs blog shusheng bar (where I used to go look for things to read xD) in its early days. A lot of the novels from that time don't even have fantranslations LOL. Can't believe 东宫 will be the first to get an official translation xD.

Gives me hope for other titles (cough).

[trobadora]

Oh, that's fascinating!

I'm interested in seeing how they manage the translation process and what the quality of the final product is.

Yeah, looking forward to hearing about that eventually!

[geraineon]

Thanks for sharing this news!

Will keep an eye on this. Certainly good news.

[neigette]

Randomly did some sleuthing on Twitter and I feel like Alyza might also be the translator? o: https://x.com/alyzaliu/status/1686233446165762048 https://x.com/alyzaliu/status/1686231224153509889

[douqi]

ngl I'd find that rather disappointing since I was hoping they'd commission an experienced translator (which she doesn't seem to be, based on that thread).

[neigette]

Yeah, maybe she didn't go that route though since it seems like already took 5+ years just to get rights? https://x.com/alyzaliu/status/1686251283659849728 And commissioning a new translation + editing it would add more time.
But again, this is all just speculation since no translator name has been released yet.


Asides: The 5+ years also makes me curious what the obstacles were (if it was internal at S&S or on the author side?)

Also, oh no, the second tweet I had linked above is already deleted;; (maybe because I liked it) But it was something about getting rights/a translation for donggong and youfei