Foreign Languages Press
{{Short description|Publishing house located in China}}
{{about|the Chinese publisher|similarly-named publishers|Foreign Languages Publishing House (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox publisher
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| image = Foreign Languages Press logo 2010.svg
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| parent = China International Publishing Group
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| founded = {{start date and age|1952}}
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| country = China
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Foreign Languages Press is a government publishing house located in China.
Based in Beijing, it was founded in 1952 and currently forms part of the China International Publishing Group, which is owned and controlled by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party.
The press publishes books on a wide range of topics in eighteen languages spoken primarily outside China. Much of its output is aimed at the international community – its 1960s editions of works by Marx and Lenin are still widely circulated – but it also publishes some material aimed at foreign language students within China.{{cn|date=April 2025}}
History
At its founding, Foreign Languages Press was part of China's International News Bureau.{{Cite book |last=Xu |first=Lanjun |title=Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-05722-7 |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=Alexander C. |location=Cambridge |pages= |chapter=Translation and Internationalism}}{{Rp|page=77}} The purpose of establishing Foreign Languages Press was to increase international distribution of material for foreign readers, particularly to the non-socialist countries.{{Rp|page=77}} In 1952, it was re-organized under the Publicity Department.{{Rp|pages=77-78}}
Foreign Languages Press started publications including China Pictorial, People's China, China Reconstructs, and Peking Review.{{Rp|page=79}} It also published the journal Chinese Literature, which focused on translations of classics by May Fourth authors, socialist realists, and Stalin Prize winners.{{Rp|page=80}}
Beginning in the 1950s many works of classical and modern Chinese literature were translated into English by translators such as Gladys Yang, Yang Xianyi and Sidney Shapiro.{{Cite news |date=1999-11-24 |title=Gladys Yang |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/nov/24/guardianobituaries |access-date=2025-04-27 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}Michael Donohue, [https://web.archive.org/web/20080902065950/http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080814/REVIEW/559194546/1008 "The expatriate"], The National (Abu Dhabi), 14 August 2008. Retrieved 27 March 2022. Among the May Fourth authors whose works Foreign Language Press translated were: Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Mao Dun, and Ding Ling.{{Rp|page=81}}
In 1967, Foreign Languages Press began publishing Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong in Albanian.{{Cite book |last=Mëhilli |first=Elidor |title=Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-05722-7 |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=Alexander C. |location=Cambridge |pages= |chapter=Mao and the Albanians}}{{Rp|page=167}}
See also
- Foreign Languages Publishing House (Soviet Union), Moscow – similar publisher in Soviet Union
- Foreign Languages Publishing House (North Korea), Pyongyang – similar publisher in North Korea
- Foreign Languages Publishing House (Vietnam), Hanoi – similar publisher in Vietnam which is now known as Thế Giới Publishers
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{Official website}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20180404041331/http://www.flp.com.cn/ Archival links of Foreign Languages Press at The Internet Archive in the US]
{{Translators Association of China}}
{{Authority control}}
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Category:Political book publishing companies
Category:Publishing companies of China
Category:Organizations associated with the Chinese Communist Party