Fiona Kidman believes the international
market for New Zealand writing is showing rapid expansion at last. In just one
month her novel The Book of Secrets has appeared in Paris as Le Livre
de Secrets to full-page reviews in nearly all leading daily newspapers; her
poetry collection, Where your left hand rests is translated into Italian
as Dove si posa la mano sinistra (by a team of translators in New
Zealand and Italy, led by Marco Sonzogni from Victoria University); and her
story ‘Hats’ appeared as ‘Sombreros' in a Spanish anthology of New Zealand
short stories called Un pais de cuento, translated and edited by Paloma
Fresno Calleja and Janet Wilson. The anthology’s 25 stories include the work of
Katherine Mansfield, Albert Wendt, Vincent O'Sullivan, Patricia Grace, Fiona
Farrell, Owen Marshall and Sue Orr. Kidman also received confirmation that
German rights have been sold for her most recent novel The Infinite Air.
Her French publisher has previously published her
short-story collection The Trouble with Fire and her novel The
Captive Wife (entitled Rescapée), published in 2006. The covers
shown here of her French editions follow a standard design, an approach which
is in stark contrast to the Romanian edition of The Captive Wife (Lupta
cu Destinul) published in 2009. Speaking of Romania, another publisher
there has just bought Romanian
language rights to Craig Cliff’s The Mannequin Makers.
Meanwhile Ben
Atkins’ novel Drowning City, published in March this year, has recently
sold to a German company, and Judith White’s novel The Elusive Language of
Ducks has been released in the UK this month. White’s novel will also be
published in Taiwan, as will Carl Nixon’s Rocking Horse Road. Previously
Taiwan has sampled New Zealand writing through Paul Cleave’s novels, but
readers there will be treated to a lot more with New Zealand being the Guest
Country of Honour at the forthcoming 2015 Taiwan International Book Exhibition.
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