One of the largest public-listed multimedia publishers in town, China South Publishing & Media Group (CNS) has 30 subsidiaries, including two well-known imprints: Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House, and Hunan Juvenile & Children’s Publishing House.
Developing original content and high-quality IP with international appeal is the corporate mission of CNS. Ma Boyong’s historical novel The Litchi Road is a good example: it offers a unique perspective on the once-flourishing Tang Dynasty and sells more than a million copies every year. A film adaptation of The Litchi Road has sparked even more widespread attention, achieving a breakthrough print-to-screen effect. Another title, Zhang Jiajia’s Moments We Shared, offers warmth and philosophical insights to young readers. It has sold more than 10 million copies; the film adaptation was released in June 2024.
Then there is DoDoRo’s Detective MacFox, a 42-volume interactive mystery series for young readers about a science detective. “It tops the online audio platform Ximalaya’s popularity list, with audio playback exceeding 5.2 billion times,” says He Lihui, who is the chairwoman of CNS and of its parent company, Hunan Publishing Investment Holding Group. “The series is laden with scientific principles and pop-science knowledge,” she says, “and accompanied by detective codebooks, notes, and puzzles to enrich the reading experience. It literally pioneered a new publication style that is educational, entertaining, explorative, and innovative.”
He Lihui and her team have also been very successful in selecting science and humanities classics for translation, such as the updated and expanded edition of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time: Illustrated; The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein series; and Leonardo da Vinci: The Complete Works. “We are also the exclusive Chinese publisher of Britannica’s Young Children’s Encyclopedia, which has been hailed as the perfect fusion of science and humanities, and has become a key text in early childhood education for Chinese families,” He says. “These selections demonstrate our strategic vision and our commitment to high-end academic publishing.”
In the fiction category, Ma Boyong’s latest novel, Peach Blossom Spring is Fine, immediately topped the bestseller charts upon its release. Inspired by the Chinese utopian fable Peach Blossom Spring, it incorporates fantastical adventures within a weighty narrative of middle-aged fatigue, complete with demons and the absurdities of everyday modern life. For He, this book’s cultural fusion and captivating narrative offer significant potential for copyright export.
A nonfiction volume, Guilin, Guilin: China’s War of Resistance in Literature and Art, commemorates the 80th anniversary of World War II and the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. This work recounts the epic history of cultural resistance waged in Guilin by 47 prominent figures, such as Xu Beihong, Ba Jin, and Tian Han, who used their pens as weapons and their art as shields. Then there is Deng Xiangzi’s three-volume children’s fiction series, Childhood in Zhijiang, written after the author’s visits to Zhijiang Airport, the Surrender Memorial Hall, and other historic sites in Hunan. The series explores the sorrows of war and the innocence of childhood, giving young people a distinctive and moving historical perspective.
For the second half of 2025, He is focusing on Hunan culture, a core resource, with plans to launch several major and influential projects. The Continuation of the Hunan Library, for instance, will supplement the existing 702-volume Hunan Library. This project, which will total 300 volumes, with 61 already published, highlights the contemporary value of historical documents and throws a spotlight on Hunan cultural research. The Complete Works of Huang Xing and The Collection of Warring States Chu Bamboo Slips Excavated in Hunan will also be launched.
“The compilation and publication of these classics is a solid contribution to the study of China’s modern revolutionary history and pre-Qin history and culture,” He says. “We aim to provide rare and precious historical materials to the academic community and the public.”
CNS publishes more than 3,000 new titles annually, and now has well over 30,000 active publications in its catalog. Says He: “Our extensive line covers a wide range of fields, including the arts, biography, culture, education, literature, medicine, music, and pop-science, and holds leading positions in multiple subcategories. Last year and for the first half of 2025, we had the second largest share of the Chinese retail book market among publishing groups nationwide—and we led in new book sales.”
