September 12, 2004
China cell phone novel launched on Friday
"Meet the one you met for thousands of years, in the borderless wilderness of the time, neither a step before nor a step behind. Be there right on time."
Those are the words from the first installment of "Out of the Fortress", a story of forbidden love writtenby Chinese author Qian Fuchang, which showed up on tens of thousands of mobile telephone screens on Friday, according to The New York Times via China Digital News.
"Out of the Fortress" made its debut at 10 o'clock this morning. The first words paraphrased a famous literary passage from another author, Zhang Ailing, a coded message between two lovers arranging their secret rendezvous:
The novel is meant to be read in 70-word chapters transmitted by text message.
With the publication of "Out of the Fortress," Mr. He has become a media star, with more than 100 journalists interviewing him recently.
Related articles:
-- Rushkoff to write SMS novel - "Unlike the ones I've seen so far, however, I want it to be native to the wireless space. If it's text and text/image messages that will serve as the medium of transmission, then they should be messages from the organic world of the book. An epistolary, if you will, in SMS.
-- First bilingual short story book written in SMS-shorthand - Phil Marso, author and Independent Editor of Megacomik publishing, has recently launched the first bilingual SMS title called «Frayeurs SMS» («SMS Frights»), a collection of 6 short stories which appear in French on the left hand side of the book and in English on the right hand pages.
-- Coming to a cellphone near you: A novel - «Outside The Fortress Besieged», the story of an extramarital affair, written by Chinese author Qian Fuchang, is a novel meant to be read in 70-word chapters transmitted by text message.
-- Mobile fiction micropublishing - Japanes author Joshi, who has been sending installments of his best selling novel, «Deep Love», by text messaging has been very successful. News of the novel spread by word of mouth, and within three years the site had received a total of 20 million hits".
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