Shelley Parker-Chan

Shelley Parker-Chan is an Asian-Australian author of historical fantasy and a former diplomat and international-development adviser. Before becoming a novelist, they worked on human rights, gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights in Southeast Asia, including in Timor-Leste and Indonesia. Parker-Chan uses they/them pronouns and describes their fiction as queer, lightly fantastical historical writing concerned with intense emotions, political ambition and flawed characters. Their debut received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer and the British Fantasy Awards for both Best Novel and Best Newcomer.

Parker-Chan is best known for the Radiant Emperor duology, comprising She Who Became the Sun and He Who Drowned the World. Set during the decline of Mongol Yuan rule and the fourteenth-century rebellions that preceded the Ming dynasty, the series radically reimagines the rise of Zhu Yuanzhang, the impoverished rebel who became the Hongwu Emperor. The novels combine warfare, dynastic struggle and court politics with supernatural manifestations of fate and close examinations of gender, sexuality, desire and the pursuit of greatness. Because the books deliberately reshape historical identities and events and contain overtly fantastical elements, Parker-Chan should be classified primarily as a historical fantasy author rather than a conventional historical novelist.