R. F. Kuang

Peter Luo's Starlight Media and SA Inc is set to adapt The Poppy War trilogy for television.[28]

The Poppy War, a grimdark fantasy, draws its plot and politics from mid-20th-century China,[29][30][31] with the conflict in the novel based on the Second Sino-Japanese War, and an atmosphere inspired by the Song dynasty.[32] The Poppy War was nominated for the 2019 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.[33]

Released in 2019, The Dragon Republic is the sequel to The Poppy War. The Nikan Empire begins to fall apart due to infighting and the Hesperians return. The reviewer for Fantasy Book Review wrote, "Kuang excels at wreaking emotional havoc while delivering a powerful meditation on war and survival."[34] Publishers Weekly said that "Kuang brings brilliance to this invigorating and complex military fantasy sequel to The Poppy War."[35]

Released in 2020, The Burning God is the sequel to The Dragon Republic and the conclusion to the Poppy Wars series. Rin fights the forces that have torn her country apart into a civil war. A reviewer for The Fantasy Hive wrote, "Rebecca Kuang's conclusion to her debut trilogy, The Poppy War, is testament to her growth as a writer; not only is it a fitting close to an ambitious series."[36] The reviewer for Publishers Weekly said that "[t]he result is a satisfying if not happy end to the series."[37]

In May 2021, Kuang announced the August 2022 release of her fourth novel, Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution, by Harper Voyager. Babel is set in 1830s England.[38][39] In the second week of September 2022, Babel debuted at the top spot on The New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover fiction,[40] but dropped to the ninth spot the following week[41] before disappearing from the list by the end of the month.[42]

In October 2021, Kuang announced that her fifth novel, Yellowface, would be published in 2023.[43] Publisher William Morrow and Company stated in a press release that Yellowface follows "a white author who steals an unpublished manuscript, written by a more successful Asian American novelist who died in a freak accident, and publishes it as her own".[44] The title of the novel, Yellowface, refers to the film industry practice of yellowface, in which white actors are used to portray Asian characters, analogously to blackface, in which white actors use makeup to portray black or African characters. This book is Kuang's first foray into the literary fiction genre. Writing in the "Acknowledgement" section of the book, Kuang considers her book a "horror story about loneliness in a fiercely competitive industry."[45]

In the last week of May 2023, Yellowface debuted at the eighth spot on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list for hardcover fiction.[46] In the first week of June 2023, Yellowface debuted at the fifth spot on The New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover fiction.[47] The reviewer for NPR called the book "a well-executed, gripping, fast-paced novel about the nuances of the publishing world when an author is desperate enough to do anything for success."[48] Writing for the New York Times, award-winning author Amal El-Mohtar wrote that the novel is "a breezy and propulsive read, a satirical literary thriller that’s enjoyable and uncomfortable in equal measure."[49]

In February 2023, Kuang reported that while working on her doctoral degree at Yale, she is also working on her sixth novel, a fantasy about two magical PhD students as they travel to Hell "to rescue the soul of their advisers so that they can write their job recommendation letters".[50] In an interview with The Guardian, Kuang calls the project "nonsense literature".[51]

• The Poppy War (May 2018), ISBN 978-0062662569
• The Dragon Republic (August 2019), ISBN 978-0062662637
• The Burning God (November 2020), ISBN 978-0062662620

• Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution (August 2022), ISBN 978-0063021440[77]
• Yellowface (May 2023), ISBN 978-0063250833[78]

• "The Nine Curves River" in the anthology The Book of Dragons (July 2020; edited by Jonathan Strahan ISBN 978-0062877161 (story read by LeVar Burton via LeVar Burton Reads)
• "Against All Odds" in the anthology From a Certain Point of View: 40 stories celebrating 40 years of The Empire Strikes Back (November 2020) ISBN 978-0593157749

• "How to Talk to Ghosts" in the 21st issue of Uncanny Magazine (March 6, 2018)[79]