The first volume of Vietnam’s award-winning graphic novel Long Than Tuong is now available as an English-language e-book.
The team behind the book, which earned a Silver Award at Japan’s 2016 International MANGA Awards and became one of Vietnam’s most successful crowd-funding projects, released a digital, English-language version of the story on Amazon late last month in hopes of expanding their audience to include foreign readers.
Holy Dragon Imperator, as it’s known in English, is a work of historical fiction set during the Tran Dynasty (1225-1400). The Vietnamese book was originally published in 2014 after a massive crowd-funding effort and roughly a decade of work on the part of its authors, Nguyen Thanh Phong and Nguyen Khanh Duong.
According to Zing the English version, which is available for US$2.99 on Amazon, came about after Long Than Tuong won its International MANGA Award early last year. Duong told Zing that the team began to receive queries about an English version for non-Vietnamese readers after picking up the accolade.
Based on this interest, the team behind Long Than Tuong spent nearly a year creating an English version of the novel’s first installment and enlisted the help of a global team of Vietnamese writers, editors, illustrators and consultants to bring the story to life for a foreign audience.
Now that the e-book is out, Duong told Zing that this is just the beginning for Holy Dragon Imperator: the team plans to advertise the graphic novel in foreign markets and, if there is enough demand for the story, publish a print version of the English book in future.
The Vietnamese trailer for Long Than Tuong's first volume. Video via YouTube user Phong Duong Comic.
[Photo via Behance user Phong Nguyen Thanh]
