"So basically, you were the person who introduced Game of Thrones to Taiwan?"

Interview with Gray Tan, Taiwanese translator and head of the Grayhawk Agency. Plus: upcoming events, a trip to Yunlin in May, and book club on My Name Is Lucy Barton

We’re honored to share our interview with Gray Tan (譚光磊). As the head of a literary agency, Gray brings books from all around the world to Taiwan and champions Taiwanese writers in the international market. He’s probably most famous for having translated Game of Thrones into Mandarin before it got huge, back when he was a college student in Taipei. (As we learned in this interview, he never went to class; “Gray? Who’s that?” was a refrain among his fellow students.) 

Taiwan’s marginality on the world stage is often a cause for lament, but we’ve noticed a flipside as well: even in elite cultural spaces, people here tend to be less arrogant and self-important. Gray is simply lovely: easygoing, open, curious, and a self-described nerd. 

We met Gray when we first got here. His agency represented Michelle's book Reading with Patrick and sold it to a Taiwanese publisher, leading to the publication of the Taiwanese version, 陪你讀下去, in 2017. But we got to see his work up close when he invited us…