The Chinese version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is going on sale at 9:00 AM on October 28. The publisher, the People's Literature Publishing House, disclosed that the price is about 66 yuan but the Chinese title is still a secret. To be sure the mainland version will be different from the Hong Kong and Taiwan versions. Special paper has been readied for hundreds of thousands more copies of Deathly Hallows to be printed.
Hong Kong traditional Chinese version was already on sale on October 20, 2007.
Sun Shunlin, who is in charge of the publishing of Deathly Hallows, explained that the book has been printed by 4 printing houses with the help of two bookbinding factories. So far one million copies have been printed. The first orders from Beijing bookstores have reached 180,000 copies.
According to a Beijing News report on October 23, the Wangfujing Book Store and Beijing Book Building have ordered 2,000 and 7,600 copies respectively. These orders have exceeded Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (5,900 copies). They also have prepared the badges given out to readers who order the books. The readers who buy their books on October 28 will get a free set of Harry Potter bookplates.
Before disclosing the end of Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling said she was planning to write a Harry Potter Encyclopedia to introduce all the Harry Potter characters. But others have already snatched her idea. New Star Press has obtained the Harry Potter Encyclopedia, written together by 10 experts from China, Japan, America, Korea, etc. New Star Press will release it before the release of the Harry Potter 7 book on October 28.
This encyclopedia will help ordinary Harry Potter fans to better understand Harry Potter's world. It will explain some terms not clearly explained in Harry Potter, including why the school of witchcraft and wizardry is called "Hogwarts", the meanings of the incantations and the background stories of the wizards, spirits and all the magical creatures. It will analyze the characters and explain the relationship between the wizards' background, experience, personality and names and Greek mythology, Roman mythology and the Bible stories in detail.
In order to satisfy public curiosity about the incantations, the encyclopedia will also interpret the wizardry, incantations and nicknames from the Latin, English, French and German etymological point of view.
The chief editor believes that this encyclopedia will help the "Harry Potter fans" to find clues to all unanswered questions.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Ming'ai, October 24, 2007)
