Harry Potter and the Chinese Empire

Fake Potter books hit Chinese market with titles like Harry Potter and the Hiking Dragon

Chinese readers could not wait for the official release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the much-anticipated seventh and concluding book in the series, a little more than a week ago. But unlike fidgety fans elsewhere, they could do something about it.

A book with the same title came out a full 10 days before the official worldwide English-language release on July 21 — a wholly unauthorized version that bears nothing in common with the instant bestseller written by J K Rowling.

The iterations of Potter fraud and imitation here are, in fact, so copious they must be peeled back layer by layer. There are the books, like the phony seventh novel, that masquerade as works written by Rowling. There are the copies of the genuine items, in both English and Chinese, scanned, reprinted, bound and sold for a fraction of the price of the authorized texts.

As in some other countries, there are the unauthorized translations of real Harry Potter books, as well as books published under the imprint of major, established Chinese publishing houses, about which the publishers themselves claim no knowledge. And there are the novels by budding Chinese writers hoping to piggyback on the success of the series — sometimes only to have their fake Potters copied by underground publishers who, naturally, pay them no royalties.

There are easily a dozen unauthorized Harry Potter titles on the market.

These include Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Relative Prince, as well as pure inventions like Harry Potter and the Hiking Dragon, Harry Potter and the Chinese Empire, Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon.

In other words, the global Harry Potter publishing phenomenon has mutated into something altogether Chinese: a combination of remarkable imagination and startling industriousness, all placed in the service of counterfeiting, literary fraud and copyright violation.