When the manuscript of Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends first arrived in Peng Lun’s inbox, he hesitated. It was 2017, and Peng had just started his own publishing house in Shanghai, Archipel Press. He had heard about the heated auction for the rights to the young author’s first novel and thought it might be worth having it translated into simplified Chinese.
“Her writing is simple but very, very fresh,” he said. He acquired the
