A short life of the author
Rebecca F. Kuang (b. 1996) was born on 29 May 1996 in Guangzhou, China, and grew up in Smyrna, Texas, USA. She studied modern Chinese history at Georgetown University and has a master’s from Cambridge and a PhD in East Asian languages and literature from Yale. She published The Poppy War at twenty-two, while still an undergraduate.
Life and Career
The Poppy War (2018) — about Rin, an orphan who wins a place at a military academy in a fantasy version of China and discovers she has shamanic powers — was praised for its unflinching depiction of war (the novel draws on the Rape of Nanjing and the Second Sino-Japanese War). The Dragon Republic (2019) and The Burning God (2020) completed the trilogy.
Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution (2022) — set in an alternate 1830s Oxford where silver bars engraved with matched translation pairs power the British Empire — was a #1 New York Times bestseller and won the Nebula and Locus Awards. It is simultaneously a dark academia novel, a fantasy, a post-colonial critique, and a meditation on how translation creates and destroys meaning.
Yellowface (2023) — a satirical literary thriller about a white woman who steals her dead Chinese American friend’s manuscript and publishes it as her own — was a sharp, funny dissection of publishing, race, and authorship.
Major Works and Themes
Kuang writes about empire, language, race, and power — drawing on Chinese history, post-colonial theory, and the politics of who gets to tell which stories. Her speed of output and range of register are remarkable.
Key Works
- The Poppy War (2018)
- Babel (2022)
- Yellowface (2023)
Collecting Kuang
The Poppy War (2018, Harper Voyager) — her debut — brings $50–$150 for firsts. Babel (2022, Harper Voyager) brings $20–$50.