At the 73rd Frankfurt Book Fair， the representative works of Chinese writer Xue Mo， including Desert Rites， Desert Hunters， White Tiger Pass， Song of Liangzhou， Wolfmother Hui’er， and Selected Stories by Xue Mo in Chinese， English， German， Arabic versions and others， were exhibited in the booths of China International Book Trading Corporation and China Publishing Group Corp.， and received wide attention and support from publishers from all over the world.

At the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2019， as the sole writer whose works were on exhibition in an independent booth， Xue Mo’s works received widespread attention and heated admiration， with fruitful results achieved. Currently， his works have been or are being translated into more than 20 foreign languages， including English， German， French， Russian， Korean， Japanese， Nepali， Spanish， and Arabic， with over 40 versions in foreign languages having been published.

This marks the debut of the German version of Desert Rites by Xue Mo at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2021. The new version was in print by Austrian Publishing House in October 2020. His work has been translated into English by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Lichun Lin， famous American sinologists and translators， into German by Wu Yi， a famous German translator， and Spanish. Among others， aside from Desert Rites， Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Lichun Lin， a couple， have also translated Desert Hunters， White Tiger Pass， The Wild Fox Ridge， Curses of Western Xia， The Mahamudra of Light Series， and so on into English. According to Mr. Goldblatt， “Reading works by Xue Mo is a brand new experience for us， so is to translate his novels.”

Desert Rites is the first full-length novel written by Xue Mo for 12 years. At first， published by Shanghai Literature amp; Art Publishing House in 2000， this novel was included in this year’s Chinese Literature Yearbook， entering the awarding process for the 5th National Books Prize and the 6th Mao Dun Literature Prize. It establishes Xue Mo’s position in the Chinese literary circle. As “an iconic work of contemporary literature in describing western China”， Desert Rites has gained wide recognization with five editions published and dozens of reprints made.

At the book fair， Desert Rites aroused immense attention from publishers from the UK， France， Germany， Switzerland， India， Israel， Argentina， and other countries. They are eager to further communicate and exchange with regards to its copyright and translation.