Eastern Chapter, the first literary agency to work mainly between Asia and the Portuguese-speaking countries and territories, was officially launched Thursday.
The agency is based in Macau (China) and represents more than 60 authors from Macau, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, India, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Australia and elsewhere.
The agency will represent authors such as Han Shaogong, Sheng Keyi, Lijia Zhang, Hong Ying, Yu Jian, btr (China), Jenny Lao-Phillips, Joe Tang, Rai Mutsu, Lawrence Lei, Rui Rocha, Luís Mesquita de Melo (Macau), Hu Ching-fang (Taiwan), Xu Xi, Tammy Lai-Ming Ho (Hong Kong), Jeremy Tiang (Singapore), Prabda Yoon (Thailand) , Bernice Chauly (Malaysia), Sarge Lacuesta, Mookie Lacuesta (Philippines), Jessica Faleiro (India), Krys Lee (South Korea), Brian Castro (Australia), Paulo José Miranda, Bruno Vieira Amaral, Patrícia Reis, Rui Zink, Rui Cardoso Martins, Afonso Cruz, Maria Inês Almeida, Valério Romão, João Tordo, Isabel Valadão, Francisco José Viegas, Joaquim Magalhães de Castro (Portugal), Natalia Borges Polesso, Marcelino Freire, Felipe Franco Munhoz, Carol Rodrigues (Brazil), Abraão Vicente (Cape Verde), Deusa D’África (Mozambique) and Abdulai Silá (Guinea-Bissau) are among the ones represented by the agency.
Eastern Chapter aims to build a bridge between Asia and the Portuguese-speaking countries, by handling books copyright, stimulating translations, promoting the participation of its authors in different festivals, organizing events and publishing multilingual anthologies in Macau.
This first literary agency based in Macau has signed agreements with other literary agencies around the globe, namely, Bookoffice and Storyspell (Portugal), and MTS Agência (Brazil), as well as with a number of independent publishing houses from different countries.
Eastern Chapter incorporates a boutique-publishing house, mainly featuring Macau or Macau-related authors, and publishing multilingual anthologies from different Portuguese and Chinese-speaking territories.
The first two books are coming soon, with A Humidade dos Dias [Portuguese language], by Luís Mesquita de Melo, being published and presented in March , and Spotless Glass, a trilingual [Chinese, English and Portuguese] poetry book by Macau author Jenny-Lao Phillips coming up in April.
The agency also provides a number of other services, such as translation between Chinese, English, Portuguese and other languages, mainly for art publications and art institutions, schools and universities; as well as literary translation services for publishing houses or authors wishing to have their books translated.
The company offers editorial consultancy services and produces literature-related events such as seminars, conferences and workshops.
The Eastern Chapter is headed by journalist Hélder Beja.
Beja was for several years director and co-founder of the Script Road-Macau Literary Festival.(MacauNews)
