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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.
Quyen Nguyen is the co-founder and Chief Editor of Zzz Review, an independent non-profit online literary review based in Vietnam, with solid reputation as a trustworthy platform for up-to-date, informed and thoughtful perspectives about national and world literature for the globally-minded Vietnamese reader. Nguyen holds a Phd in English literature from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore with a dissertation on James Joyce. Her research interests include Modernism, Translation Studies, and Contemporary Vietnamese Literature. Her research works have been published by Palgrave Macmillan, and her criticism appears on Literature Korean Now, COLORSxSTUDIOS. She writes for various Vietnamese journals and magazines.
Nguyen is also an English-Vietnamese translator with more than 16 years of experience; her published translations include “What we talk about when we talk about love” by Raymond Carver (co-translated), “Atonement” by Ian McEwan, “Middlesex” by Jeffrey Eugenides.
Her edited anthology of Contemporary Vietnamese Literature in English translation is forthcoming.
Besides experiences in publishing and research, she has also been professionally involved with international cultural institutions and private firms in Germany, the UK, Australia, and Vietnam.