James Joyce's novel “Finnegans Wake” has a reputation for its linguistic complexity. Big surprise the first mainland Chinese translation has proved to be a sweeping success, with the initial print run of 8,000 copies sold out in three weeks.

It took the Dublin-born creator of Ulysses, who said that writing in English is “the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives”, 17 years to write one of his best-known novels.  

It took Shanghai's Fudan University translator Dai Congrong eight years to turn Joyce's signature ‘stream of consciousness’ into Chinese, the official Xinhua news agency reported. 

"It is totally unexpected!" the editor in chief of the Shanghai People's Publishing House, the publisher of this new edition, Wang Weisong said. 
In 1995, over a thousand readers queued up to buy Joyce's “Ulysses” in Shanghai bookstores. According to the founder of China's flagship magazine of foreign literature, Yilin, copies sold out like hotcakes.

Eighteen years later, in an effort to promote “Finnegans Wake”, huge outdoor billboards advertising the novel appeared in major Chinese cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing. 

“Finnegans Wake” is reportedly the first book to be promoted in this way.

Some of the leading Chinese writers were invited to take part in workshops to discuss Joyce's masterpiece. 

"Joyce must have been mentally ill to create such a novel!" Professor from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Jiang Xiaoyuan, was quoted as saying.

"Finnegans Wake is a book for bibliophiles, for critics but not for readers," one user complained on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, Xinhua news agency reported.

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