About the book
In famine-struck fourteenth-century China under Mongol rule, a peasant girl seizes the identity, and the great destiny, of her dead brother, rising through a rebel monastery and army toward power.
Curated by intendle
Published
Fantasy & Magical Realism
She Who Became the Sun
SC
Written by
Published by
Tor Books (US); Mantle / Pan Macmillan (UK)
- Published
- 2021
- Pages
- 416
- Format
- Hardcover (US first edition; UK...
- Language
- English
When famine and bandits destroy her family, a nameless peasant girl in Mongol-ruled China does the unthinkable: she takes her dead brother's name and his prophesied destiny of greatness, and refuses, through monastery and battlefield and years of ruthless striving, to let go.
Shelley Parker-Chan's award-winning debut reimagines the rise of the Ming dynasty's founding emperor as a queer, gender-bending epic of ferocious ambition, following Zhu as they claw toward a throne while a brilliant, mutilated enemy general mirrors their hunger.
Grounded in real history but threaded with a spare, ghost-touched magic, the novel is a study of desire, gender and the terrible cost of wanting to matter. Parker-Chan writes with cinematic sweep and psychological depth, and their morally complicated protagonists are magnetic. Comparisons to Mulan undersell its darkness and sophistication.
For readers who love historical fantasy that is epic, intelligent and emotionally fierce, it is a commanding debut and the start of a superb duology.
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Pages
416
Published
2021
Tor Books (US); Mantle / Pan Macmillan (UK)
Where to buy
Format
Hardcover (US first edition; UK...
Language
English
Fantasy & Magical Realism
ISBN
978-1250621801
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