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Major Books is an independent publishing company dedicated to bringing Vietnamese literature to the English-speaking world.
Our name, Major
Books – devised by our brilliant friend Alina Martin – speaks as a clear, bold, and audacious resistance against the “minor” status attributed to certain languages and their literature in the global publishing scene.
Our hope is to contribute, no matter how little, to growing awareness that there are no ‘lesser’ voices in world literature.
With the acute awareness of translation as an art form bearing immense potentials and challenges, our primary goal is to offer translations that are not only faithful but also true to the essence of the source book. Our translators, editors and illustrators, being mostly native speakers themselves, are committed to preserve the integrity and convey the originality of the author’s work.
We take immense pride in providing our authors, translators, and all stakeholders with fair and equitable compensation for their invaluable contributions, with the hope of fostering a thriving Vietnamese literature and creative ecosystems.
Between literary treasures that have been overlooked or worse, poorly translated, and brilliant pieces yet to be written, we will bring a curated selection of works from a variety of authors, periods, and genres. Ranging from critically acclaimed post-war fiction, national epic poetry, to contemporary LGBTQ+ writings, we hope to present a well-rounded portrait of Vietnam and our diverse voices.
Hoàng Anh is a Vietnamese illustrator working under the name of “Mía”. She focuses on picture book illustrations, in addition to her special interests in landscape painting and illustrated lettering. Whenever possible, she tries to weave different aspects of her Vietnamese identity into her artworks. Hoàng Anh recently received an MA degree in Children’s Literature: Children’s Book Illustration from Goldsmiths, University of London. She wants to pursue a career in children’s literature both as an illustrator and an author.
Comic creator-illustrator nguyễn tiến dũng (pen name: Jeet Zdũng) was born in 1988 in Da Nang and grew up in Hanoi. He works mainly in the field of creating, writing and illustrating books for readers from 4 years old and up. His works are multiform, including manga/comics (with or without words), graphic novels and picture books. His work often depicts adventures and observations on nature, folk arts, sports, children, and wildlife. Jeet Zdũng has diverse drawing styles that change depending on the content, from realistic depictions to cartoon, manga, and vietnamese-japanese folk styles. His favourite materials are watercolour paper, washi paper, dó paper, canvas, comic pen, brush, ink, watercolour, gouache, acrylic, and acryl gouache.
At present, Jeet’s most successful works are two graphic novels: Saving Sorya: Chang and the Sun Bear and Saving H’non: Chang and the Elephant, co-authored with conservationist Trang Nguyễn.
He has won several awards, including a silent manga audition excellence award for his manga stand up and fly and was the first Vietnamese to have won the Yoto Carnegie medal for illustration for Saving Sorya.
JOSHUA BLACK is a graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, where he earned degrees in Southeast Asian Studies, Languages and Literatures of Southeast Asia, and a PhD researching queer identities in Vietnamese literature of the early 2000s. He has worked at universities in the UK and Vietnam teaching courses related to Vietnamese language and culture, British and American literature, and translation studies. In addition to being passionate about Vietnamese literature, Joshua’s research interests include gender and LGBTQ+ issues and refugees and forced migration.
I co-founded Major Books with the hope to share the love of Vietnamese literature with you, fellow reader. Thank you for working hard reading, as we certainly had fun bringing our brilliant writers to you.
In parallel, I’m also working for Coral Books, a publishing company based in Vietnam that specialises in translating international works into Vietnamese, so pay us a visit if you are interested!