Parker-Chan wins Hugo Award for Best New Writer

Australian writer Shelley Parker-Chan has won the Best New Writer category at the Hugo Awards for science fiction.

Parker-Chan’s debut She Who Became the Sun was first published in the US by Tor Books in 2021 before being published by Pan Macmillan Australia. The novel is a genderqueer reimagining of the Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang’s rise to power in 14th-century China. Zhu, a peasant assigned female at birth, assumes their deceased brother’s identity as they begin their path to unifying China under native rule and becoming the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

She Who Became the Sun was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, which was won by Arkady Martine for A Desolation Called Peace (Tor).

The Hugo Awards are presented annually by the World Science Fiction Convention. This year’s awards were presented on 4 September at a ceremony in Chicago. To see the winners in all categories, visit the Hugo Awards website.

Photo credit: Harvard Wang

Category: Awards Local news