"Boy's Love" novels

[Randy W]

Pre-orders for the official English translations of three hugely popular Chinese “boy’s love” novels quickly ranked among Amazon’s top 15 bestsellers and occupied the top three spots on Barnes and Noble’s pre-order bestseller list.

Some of China’s most popular and best-loved danmei — or “boys’ love” — novels are finally receiving official English translations.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3015024188816421

Popular Chinese ‘Boys’ Love’ Novels Set for English Release
The homoerotic novels are among the country’s most popular — and controversial — literary works. Now they’re being translated for English-speaking audiences.

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Some of China’s most popular and best-loved danmei — or “boys’ love” — novels are finally receiving official English translations, and excited fans have already pushed them to the top of bestseller lists at major retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

The three series — “The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System,” “Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation,” and “Heaven Official’s Blessing” — are the work of Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (MXTX), the pen name of one of China’s most famous danmei writers. The first installments of each series will arrive on international bookshelves this December, according to an announcement last week from publisher Seven Seas Entertainment.

Not long after the announcement, pre-orders for all three novels were ranked among the top 15 bestsellers on Amazon.com and occupied the top three spots on American bookseller Barnes and Noble’s pre-order bestseller list.

Originating in Japan, danmei has become one of China’s most popular literary genres over the past 20 years. On online literature portals like Jinjiang Literature City, top danmei novels routinely attract millions of readers hungry for homoerotic or homoromantic love stories largely by and for women.

The evolution of Chinese danmei was a process of cultural evolution, according to Xia Lie, vice president of the Chinese Writers Association’s Institute of Online Literature. Chinese danmei, originally imported, has over the past two decades developed beyond boys’ love to “become a carrier, to the greatest extent possible, of all kinds of feminine cultural symbols and psychological reflections,” Xia told Sixth Tone.

 

Just to be clear - 

Homoeroticism

Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homosexuality" implies a more permanent state of identity or sexual orientation. Wikipedia

Edited August 27, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

With hit film and TV adaptations as well as official translations of novels to English, the homoerotic “danmei” genre has only become more mainstream in recent years. But a former “danmei” writer reflects on why she stopped.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3025836777735162

Falling in Love With China’s Most Risqué — and Risky — Genre
The author, a former writer of homoerotic “danmei” fiction, on what it meant to her, and why she stopped.
 

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The sub-forum we used was shrouded in secrecy: Sometimes it would disappear from the site that hosted it altogether, becoming accessible only if you knew the code. That’s because it was one of the only major platforms on the Chinese mainland focused exclusively on stories about homosexual relationships, a taboo topic even in that relatively more permissive era.

We were China’s “rotten women.” A literal translation of the Japanese term fujoshi, the term refers to women who enjoy stories of homoromantic or homosexual relationships. It was a community in which the lines between creation and consumption were blurred: After spending years reading danmei, a Chinese genre equivalent to “slash” or boys’ love, I decided to try my hand in the genre: I wrote a 200,000-word melodrama centered on two male musicians living at the time of the French Revolution.

 . . .

Yet danmei is distinct from queer literature. In line with their Japanese predecessors, most Chinese danmei stories distinguish between the gong, “attack” role and the shou, “receive” role. Consequently, despite the possibility of subverting gender norms, one protagonist is still typically portrayed as more masculine, and the other more feminine, and their interactions often mirror those of a heterosexual couple. There is even the “childbirth” subgenre in which the shou character gets pregnant like a woman. Of course, this is not how a homosexual relationship works and these portrayals can negatively impact readers’ understanding of the LGBTQ community. In my years on danmei forums, I have seen girls bounce between different extremes: wanting more men to “turn gay” and conform to the gong-shou ideal — or becoming disillusioned and even homophobic when they realize this stereotype has little relation to real life.