Bestselling Jia Pingwa

       Via Paper Republic I find Wang Wen's Xinhua-report, Best-selling author Jia Pingwa sticks to rural life, who notes:

By selling nearly 1 million hard copies and 500,000 ebooks of his latest novel in just five months, Jia Pingwa reasserted his status in the top echelons of Chinese contemporary authors.

       I note that back in 2010 in considering the Nobel hopefuls, I suggested that while Mo Yan "would appear to be the strongest Chinese candidate" (not a bad call two years before he took the prize ...) I did peg Jia as: "the likeliest of the Chinese choices". Still barely translated into English (he does a bit better, of course, in French ...), the lack of international exposure certainly didn't help, but I continue to be surprised that he hasn't been able to establish himself better abroad.
       I do also like this bit from the article:

During the interview, Jia also went into great detail about his ideal masterpiece.

In his opinion, a great novel should combine intriguing structure with effortless prose and delicious details.

       Ah, yes, those delicious details !