“Parker-Chan unrolls the painted scroll of her epic tale with the control of a master storyteller, revealing a dazzling new world of fate, war, love and betrayal. Fantasy will never be the same.” –Zen Cho, award-winning author of The True Queen
Author Shelley Parker-Chan’s luminous, queer, alternate-history debut She Who Became the Sun, has been acquired by Tor Editor Diana Gill, at auction, in six-figure two-book deal for World English, with simultaneous worldwide English publication with Tor UK. Publication is scheduled for Spring 2021. Laura Rennert at Andrea Brown Literary Agency brokered the deal.
In She Who Became the Sun, an iron-willed peasant girl steals her brother’s identity and great fate. Defying the bounds of gender with cunning and ingenuity, her ambition takes her from monk to leader of the rebellion against China’s Mongol rulers. But her rise brings her face to face with the empire’s most feared general: an eunuch as trapped by his gender as she is free of hers. Pitched as “Mulan meets The Song of Achilles,” She Who Became the Sun is a bold reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty that raises provocative questions about gender, fate, and individual power. This lush debut heralds an amazing new literary voice for fans of Game of Thrones and the Chinese classic The Romance of the Three Kingdoms who are looking for the next epic adventure.
Shelley started writing She Who Became the Sun after being awarded an Otherwise/Tiptree Fellowship.
Shelley Parker-Chan is an Asian-Australian former diplomat who worked on human rights, gender equality and LGBT rights in Southeast Asia. Raised on Greek myths, Arthurian legend and Chinese tales of suffering and tragic romance, her debut novel She Who Became the Sun owes more than a little to all three. More information can be found at: shelleyparkerchan.com. Taryn Fagerness at Taryn Fagerness Agency is the foreign rights contact.
