Recently, Bookdao released a Top 50 ranking for Foreign Language Authors based on the media impact factor in 2022. Among them, Tanzanian-British writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, the 2021 Nobel Prize winner, American writer Jared Diamond, who is widely known for his book Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies, and Czech writer Milan Kundera, winner of the Franz Kafka Prize, are ranked in the top three.
Before further analysis of the writers on the list, it is necessary to explain the approach and methodology of this ranking.
First of all, the data comes from the "Book Influence Data Platform" owned by Bookdao. The platform has metadata of nearly 3.6 million titles, including more than 650,000 titles with recommended sources published in the past five years. The platform monitors nearly 4,000 media recommendation sources, 26% of which come from traditional media and their online channels, 8% from libraries, and 66% from other institutions' websites or self-media.
Secondly, the weight assigned to the recommended sources by the platform varies from media to media, and the influence index, which determines the ranking, is the sum of the recommended sources' weights. Different media sources have different weights depending on their authoritativeness, the number of followers and reading volume, as well as the frequency of content updates, etc. Therefore, a book with a higher number of recommended sources doesn’t necessarily mean higher on the ranking list. This ranking is not based on the total number of recommended sources of an author's work, but on the sum of the recommended source weight values of the author's work, i.e. the influence index.
Third, the number of titles published has an impact on the author influence index. In comparison, a variety of books newly published or reprinted in China in 2022 will contribute more favorably to the writer in the ranking. For example, in 2022, Abdulrazak Gurnah’s first series of five books was published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House. Jared Diamond's 5 books series was also published by CITIC Press Group. Although Milan Kundera's works are familiar to Chinese readers, this year Shanghai Translation Publishing House republished more than a dozen of his works and launched a great promotion, triggering a new craze for Milan Kundera among young readers. And ShanghaiPeople's Publishing House also released three books by this year's Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux.
Fourthly, the Top 50 Ranking for Foreign Language Authors is the result of the top 50 writers with the highest influence index of translated books published by domestic publishers in 2022 according to the media sources monitored by Bookdao’s “Book Influence Data Platform”.
The writers on this list come from 15 countries, with American writers occupying 14 seats, followed by British writers occupying 10 seats, and French and German writers occupying 5 seats each. There are also 3 for Italy, 2 for Japan,2 for Korea, 2 for Israel, and 1 each for Canada, Türkiye, Argentina, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, and the Czech Republic.
The Chinese media are very fond of honored foreign writers. On this list, there are four Nobel Laureates in Literature (Hermann Hesse in 1946, Orhan Pamuk in 2006, Abdulrazak Gurnah in 2021, and Annie Ernaux in 2022), three winners of the Pulitzer Prize (Jared Diamond，Benjamin Moser，and Eliza Griswold), and winners of the Wolfson History Prize (Julian Jackson), the Prix Goncourt (NicolasMatthiau), the Edogawa Prize (Atsushi Shimomura), the Booker Prize (Douglas Stuart), and the Spanish National Prize for Prose (Irene Vallejo).
From literature, economics, history, and social sciences to women's growth, Chinese media attention and preferences are more dispersed, allowing authors from different fields to make the list, which can be roughly divided into the following areas.
1. Unabated enthusiasm in investors' books. Guidance from mainstream investors is popular, such as Ray Dalio, author of the best-selling book The Principles, Anthony Galluzzo, author of The Consumer Factory, Eric Jorgensen, author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, and David Graeber, author of Debt: The First 5000 Years.
2. The pandemic is a popular keyword in 2022, and the authors of those works related to various pandemics have received continuous attention. For example, Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs and Steel, although the book was first published in China 20 years ago; Orhan Pamuk, author of Night of the Plague, as a veteran Nobel Prize writer, also turned out to be a popular again this time because of a new book.
3. Chinese media are more willing to learn more about history, especially Chinese history, and art from the eyes of authors worldwide, such as Francesco Morena, author of Chinoiserie: China as Source of Inspiration for European Art from the 13th to the 19th Century; Wu Hung, a writer who studied the history of ancient Chinese art; Liu Zijian, an American author who studied the history of the Chinese Song Dynasty; Patrick Geary, one of the few American scholars recognized by European colleagues in the field of medieval history; Barendter Haar, author of Guan Yu: The Religious Afterlife of a Failed Hero; SarahSchneewind, an American author who studies the history of the Ming Dynasty; and Cho-yun Hsu, a renowned Chinese-American historian.
4. The continuous tracking of popular events has enabled the relevant authors to maintain a high level of media exposure, such as Tracker's Flame, the authors of Room N Tracker, and the first Italian female astronaut biographer Samantha Cristoforetti.
5. Increased attention to the female group, writers of works focusing on women's growth, plight, and safety are on the list, such as Simone de Beauvoir of The Second Sex, Virginia Woolf, the British author who is concerned about the awakening of women, Douglas Stuart, the author of Shuggie Bain, and OrnaDonath, the author of Regretting Motherhood: A Study.
6. The works and biographies of well-known figures are in the spotlight, such as Italo Calvino, the famous Italian writer, Reiner Stach, author of the three-volume biography of Kafka, Howard Eiland and Michael W Jennings, authors of Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life, Joseph Frank, author of Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time, and Ariane Chemin, author of In Search of Milan Kundera.
In terms of genre, mystery fiction is the category that has received the most media attention in 2022, such as the two Japanese authors on the list, Atsushi Shimomura and Ryunosuke Akutagawa, who are both known for their works in mystery fiction, and Richard Osman, an Amazon UK Top 1 Chart author in mystery fiction.
There are two other authors on the list that attract attention: one is Fuchsia Dunlop, the author of Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper. It is not easy for a foreigner to write a work about Chinese cuisines that also sells well in China; the other is Sally Rooney, a talented Gen-Z female writer. Her works, such as Conversations with Friends, Normal People, Beautiful World, Where AreYou, which are closely related to the rise of Gen-Z and the changing needs of young people are well received in China. The inclusion of these two authors on the list shows that the current Chinese media and readers are seeking newer perspectives and works to express the aspirations and ideas of contemporary youth.