asia specific
HOW DOES A book about Mongolian wolves - a book weighted down with complex historical theories, written by an unknown university researcher with a history of trouble with the government - sell a million copies in China? The mainland's best-seller lists are crammed with business manuals and martial arts fantasies. Why is the reading public devouring an old man's recollections of the Cultural Revolution, and his muted call for reform of China's political system?
Wolf Totem - part memoir, part socio-historical treatise - is one of the most popular books in recent memory. Since its publication in April 2004, it's sold more than one million copies legally, and perhaps six times that number in pirated editions. It's spawned a children's version called Little Wolf, Little Wolf, a film adaptation is to be produced by the Forbidden City Film Company, and an English translation is due next year, Penguin having paid a record fee for the rights.
For all Wolf Totem's popularity, next to nothing is known about its author. Jiang Rong is the pseudonym of an economics researcher at a Beijing university, a man who doesn't show up to his own press conferences, who's kept his identities so separate that his university colleagues had no idea he'd written a book.
His anonymity is not entirely voluntary - in conversation Jiang hints at past political troubles that resulted in his being barred from teaching, and from much of public life, for the past two decades. But surely that would also exclude him from publishing books? 'At the time they didn't know it was me,' says Jiang, a 59-year-old man with piercing eyes and a sly grin. Did that cause him problems once they found out? 'Yes', is his only answer.
Public reaction to Wolf Totem has been diverse. Schoolchildren read it for the thrilling tales of wild wolves, while businesspeople study the lessons of competition and independence Jiang draws from his lupine subjects. Some party leaders have called for it to be banned, citing its subtle attacks on the government's power, while others, Jiang claims, say it points the way for the party's future.