A few years ago, the translator Jeremy Tiang was browsing in a bookstore in Singapore when he came across an unusual book of stories.
Written in Chinese under a pen name, the book, “Delicious Hunger,” drew on the author Hai Fan’s 13 years fighting in the jungles of Malaysia and southern Thailand as a guerrilla soldier with the Malayan Communist Party.
Tiang knew it might be hard to land an English-language publisher for a story collection from a Singaporean author writing under a pseudonym. But there was one publisher, a small press in Britain called Tilted Axis, that was known for seeking out subversive, experimental works in translation. Tiang submitted a sample, and Tilted Axis snapped it up.
Tiang’s translation, released in Britain last fall, won an English PEN Translates Award, becoming the first book from Singapore to win the prize.
Publishing it in the United States proved more difficult. “Delicious Hunger” was submitted to 29 American publishers, but none made an offer.
So Tiang was elated when he learned that Tilted Axis is expanding its footprint to North America. “Delicious Hunger” will go on sale here this June, one of nearly 20 titles from the Tilted Axis catalog coming out in the United States this year. The first batch arrives this month.
