Wild Peony Press was a

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

-based independent press, dedicated to fostering the better understanding of Asian cultures in English-speaking countries. Co-founded by

Mabel Lee Mabel Lee is a translator of the works of Nobel Prize-winning author Gao Xingjian. She has taught Asian studies at the University of Sydney and is one of Australia's leading authorities on Chinese cultural affairs. Lee was a professor of South ...

, Wild Peony Press was active between 1984 and 2009 and their work was hailed as " an important move against cultural parochialism" in Australia. From 1991, University of Hawai'i Press undertook international distribution. Initially publishing language textbooks, Wild Peony later focused on literature and culture, including the University of Sydney East Asian Series and World Literature Series. Wild Peony published literary anthologies, the autobiographies of

Mitsuharu Kaneko was a Japanese poet and painter. He was a recipient of the Yomiuri Prize. Biography Mitsuharu Kaneko was born in Tsushima, Aichi and attended the private Catholic school Gyosei Gakuen in Tokyo. He published his first poetry collection ''Akatsu ...

(in the translation of

A. R. Davis Professor Albert Richard ('Bertie') Davis (1924-1983) was born in Dorking and died in Sydney. The Chair of Oriental Studies at the University of Sydney for over a quarter-century, he was a major figure in the development of Asian Studies in Austra ...

), Liu Wei-ping and Stanley Hunt, a study of artist Wang Lan (Chinese-Australian artist), poetry by

Ouyang Yu Ouyang Yu (; born 1955) is a contemporary Chinese-Australian author, translator and academic. Ouyang Yu was born in the People's Republic of China, arriving in Australia in 1991 to study for a Ph. D. at La Trobe University which he completed in ...

, Zijie Pan and Subhash Jaireth, translations of Arakawa Toyozo, Junko Takamizawa (a biography of

Hideo Kobayashi was a Japanese author, who established literary criticism as an independent art form in Japan. Early life Kobayashi was born in the Kanda district of Tokyo, where his father was a noted engineer who introduced European diamond polishing techno ...

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki was a Japanese author who is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in modern Japanese literature. The tone and subject matter of his work ranges from shocking depictions of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions to subtle por ...

Nishiwaki Junzaburo Nishiwaki can refer to: * Nishiwaki, Hyōgo, Japan ** Nishiwakishi Station * Junzaburō Nishiwaki (1894–1982), Japanese writer * Michiko Nishiwaki (born 1957), Japanese actress * Takatoshi Nishiwaki is a Japanese politician and the current G ...

Yi Chung-hwan Yi Chung-hwan (; 1690-1756) was a Joseon civil servant and geographer. He wrote the classic (1751), describing Geography of Korea, places in Korea in detail, including Eight Provinces of Korea, provinces of Pyongan Province, Pyeong'an, Hamgyong Pr ...

Kyunyeo Gyunyeo or Kyun Yeo (; 923–973) was a Korean Buddhist monk and poet. He came from the Hwangju Byeon clan. Among his works are "Songs of the Ten Vows Samantabhara." These songs are set out in 1075 in the biography ''The Life of Kuehne''. This is ...

Xu Xing (writer) Xu Xing (born March 1956), is a Chinese writer, cultural scholar and independent documentary director from Beijing. Life Xu Xing, a famous Chinese writer and cultural scholarpublished his debut novel ''Variations Without a Theme'' (无主题变� ...

, Yang Lian,

Hong Ying Hong Ying (; born September 21, 1962) is a Chinese author. Biography Hong was born in Chongqing on September 21, 1962, towards the end of the Great Leap Forward. She began to write at eighteen, leaving home shortly afterwards to spend the ne ...

and

Zhai Yongming Zhai Yongming (born 1955) is a Chinese poet, essayist and screenwriter from Chengdu, in the southwest Sichuan Province. Born during the Maoist era, Zhai was forcibly sent away for two years to do manual labor in the countryside as part of the Cu ...

and papers from the conferences of the International Comparative Literature Association. Lee, a translator and friend of

Gao Xingjian Gao Xingjian (高行健 in Chinese - born January 4, 1940) is a Chinese émigré and later French naturalized novelist, playwright, critic, painter, photographer, film director, and translator who in 2000 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature " ...

, used his ink paintings for several of the Wild Peony covers.

References

Companies based in Sydney Companies established in the 20th century {{Publish-company-stub