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Chinese Potter fans buy their unofficial translations cheaply

Unauthorized Chinese translations of the latest Harry Potter book were on sale in Beijing yesterday, just two weeks after the book's global debut in English and well ahead of the planned October launch of the Chinese version.

Chinese fans who are impatient for the official translation of the sixth book, Harry Potter: The Half Blood Prince also have begun doing their own translations and posting them online.

The fantasy series by J.K. Rowling is wildly popular in China, where the hero is known as "Ha-li Bo-te" and authorized translations of five earlier books have sold millions of copies. In 2002, an unknown Chinese author produced an entire fake adventure, Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-To-Dragon.

A Chinese-character softcover version of The Half Blood Prince was being sold in an underpass in downtown Beijing for 20 yuan (US$2.5).

The saleswoman wouldn't say where she got the book, but said she had been selling copies since Friday. The official English-language hardcover books sell in Beijing for 178 yuan (US$21).

The fake book looked identical to the first five "Ha-li Bo-te" tales put out by People's Literature Publishing House, the mainland company that purchased the rights to publish Harry Potter in Chinese.

The earlier authorized translations were produced by a team of veteran children's book translators. Pirated versions of those books and the movie spin-offs are widely available in China.

Since the English-language release of Half Blood Prince, Chinese fans have begun sharing their own translations for free on Web sites, including those run by Beijing's elite Tsinghua and Peking universities.

At Peking University, a student known online as Blimey is nearing completion of a translation and planned to post the last installment on Aug. 15, the Beijing Daily Messenger said.

Blimey, who wasn't identified by name, was quoted as saying he didn't think he was breaking the law because he had no plans to sell the translation.

On the Tsinghua site, a fan writing under the name Woodchuckle was so upset by Rowling's ending that he wrote and posted his own.
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