Another Chinese novel that drawn much attention in recent years is Decoded by Mai Jia, which has been published by Penguin Classics and translated into about 33 languages, including English, French, German, Spanish and Hebrew.

In 2014 the Chinese version sold more than 3 million copies.

In the same year as the English version came out The Economist listed it as one of the top 10 fiction works of the year, and last year The Daily Telegraph named it as one of "the 20 best spy novels of all time", together with Rudyard Kipling's Kim, John le Carre's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana.

"Decoded is riddling, dreamlike and digressive, in the manner of classical Chinese fiction, but you end up wanting to decipher its mysteries as fervently as its protagonist tackles his code," The Daily Telegraph says.

Apart from the wild imagination, intricate plotting and interesting characterization, what seems to attract foreign readers most in such literary works are the Chinese elements.

For Engles, apart from battle and fight scenes, the most fascinating thing about A Hero Born is the history behind the story: the Jin Empire and the Song, and how they interacted with the Mongols, he says.

"Jin Yong evokes the period so well. I can really imagine being there, whether it's on the Grand Canal or in Jiaxing or in the fortress city of Kalgan (now Zhangjiakou, Hebei province)."

In East Asia and Southeast Asia, cultural similarity and familiarity attract many readers to Chinese fiction.

The first book of the series of Tang Mystery was published in the Chinese mainland in 2016, and now the copyright of the series has been sold to Taiwan, as well as Thailand, South Korea and Vietnam.

In the mainland, more than 350,000 sets of the series have been sold, and in Taiwan more than 500,000 sets have been sold.

"Publishers from Japan and the United States also showed interest," says Liang Yuefeng, copyright editor of the book.

"Overseas publishers are interested in the fiction because of the prosperous Tang Dynasty (618-907), especially in the neighborhood of Asia.

"The Thai version has come out. When we introduced ourselves, the publisher decided to publish it immediately."