2014 has been a succseful year for author Francesca Rhydderch. Her novel, The Rice Paper Diaries, selected to our 2013-2014 Autumn Bookcase, won the Wales Book of the Year 2014 English Fiction category, while her short story, The Taxidermist’s Daughter, was shortlisted for the prestigious BBC National Short Story Award 2014.

In early March, Francesca Rhydderch appeared at The Bookworm International Literary Festival, Beijing. The Bookworm International Literary Festival is an independently funded festival, celebrating literature and ideas, featuring writers, thinkers, artists and performers. This year, the programme had more than 300 events across eight cities, connecting more than 110 Chinese and international writers and thinkers, and includes booktalks, panel discussions, writing workshops and performances.

During Francesca Rhydderch's visit to China, Wales Literature Exchange organised a meeting with representatives from Shanghai Translation Publishing House, the largest comprehensive translation publishing house in China. In May, following the Reading China, Translating Wales symposium, that initial meeting bore fruit, as Wu Hong, Vice Editor-in-Chief at the press, announced their intention to purchase the translation rights for The Rice Paper Diaries.

Read Francesca Rhydderch’s post card from Beijing here.
Francesca Rhydderch’s journey to China was organsied in partnership with our sister organisation, Literature Across Frontiers and supported by Wales Arts International.