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Wolf Totem English Edition Published in China

Wolf Totem, a Chinese novel that has attracted critical and popular acclaim for its thought-provoking reflections on Chinese culture and society by Jiang Rong, a publicity-shy first-time author who writes under a pen name, has won the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize.

The book was published in English on March 13 by the Penguin Group and was inaugurated with a launch in the Forbidden City in Beijing. Penguin set a Chinese record with the sum it paid in 2005 for foreign publication rights, but it expects as many as two million copies to be sold in English.

The book, set on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), has been a publishing phenomenon in China, where it has sold two million copies in its legitimate imprint and several million pirated copies since its release in 2004, despite Rong's desire to keep a low profile.

A panel of three authors and literary judges selected Rong's novel for the award, which is intended to heighten the international visibility of Asian fiction and increase the volume of works reaching English audiences.

The Beijing-based author, who has largely sought anonymity as his book and nom de plume have grown in celebrity in China, was absent from the award dinner. His Chinese and English publishers said the 61-year-old author was suffering ill health.

But Wolf Totem has turned out to be much more than simply an appealing story. The book's messages about the state of modern China and Chinese culture have touched a nerve. It has been featured on television shows, used by businesses in China as a motivational tool and sold for film production, and has spawned a children's tale.

In his writing, Rong manages to convey admiration of Mongolian nomads' fierce, wolf-like independence and love of freedom as well as disdain for the political passivity and rapaciousness of modern Chinese society.