Chinese fans getting excited about new book in ‘Twilight’ series

Midnight Sun, the fifth book in the young adult series Twilight will be published on August 4, the American novelist Stephenie Meyer announced Monday. The book was originally set to be released in 2008, but this plan was canceled because of the leaking of her manuscript. After more than a decade of waiting, some Chinese fans hailed the news as the "the renaissance in 2020." 

The hashtag about the new book had attracted 160 million views and 38,000 posts by excited fans on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo by Wednesday. Some were eagerly asking about the Chinese version's publishing date while some were wondering whether there would be a new film.  

The first four books were released between 2005 and 2008, and the Chinese versions were published by China's Jieli Publishing House in 2008. It has been regarded as a "super bestseller series" like Harry Potter. On China's media review website, Douban, the four books scored between 7.6/10 and 7.8/10. 

At the Beijing International Book Fair held in September 2007, Jieli Publishing House had to compete with several publishers. Yet the series didn't draw immediate attention in the Chinese mainland as there had been concerns about its public appeal, given the cultural differences. Chinese readers weren't that familiar with stories about vampires and werewolves. 

Luckily the books turned out to be a hit. And when the movie starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson was released in the US in 2008 and the Chinese mainland in 2009, the popularity of the saga continued increasing. According to Maoyan, the Chinese ticketing and box-office data platform, Twilight, the first film of the series generated 12.42 million yuan ($1.75 million). 



The films' success in the Chinese mainland appears to have further contributed to the books' sales. Before the release of two further films, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, part 1 and part 2, many curious Chinese fans couldn't wait to know what happened. They turned to the books for answers. 

In 2018, the 10th anniversary of the first film's debut, the book series has sold over 155 million copies across the world and the simplified Chinese version of the series has sold more than 4 million copies. 

While many Chinese netizens doubt that there will be a film with the original cast for the new book, many were still happily sharing photos of their collections of the books and the films, with some describing it as "the memory of my youth."  

Global Times