Shelley Parker-Chan

Parker-Chan was born in New Zealand to a Malaysian-Chinese mother and a white father.^[2] They were raised in Australia, where they felt disconnected with their racial identity and with the stereotypical representation of Asian characters in fiction.^[3] They say in interview: "I was raised very much by a tiger parent in a part of Adelaide with a large Chinese, Malaysian and Southeast Asian Chinese population. I was a scholarship kid and I went to a posh private school where my peers were all the offspring of doctors and lawyers, and I was pushed to also become a doctor or lawyer and achieve high results. So I feel I grew up in a very classically second- generation middle-class Asian way, but I was definitely not perceived as Asian."^[4]

When they moved to Asia as a young adult, they discovered Asian dramas, and began to understand that "...Asians could be any and every kind of character: the heroes, the villains, the love interests, warriors, scholars."

They did graduate work on the subjects of war crimes and restorative justice,^[5] and worked as a diplomat, representing the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Timor-Leste, and as an international development adviser for gender equality and LGBTQ rights in Indonesia,^[6] before becoming a writer. Their interest in writing novels began with romantic fan fiction, and a desire for better queer representation in literature.^[7]

In 2021, Mantle Books published She Who Became the Sun, which became a Sunday Times Number 1 bestseller, won several awards, and has been translated into 15 languages.^[8] This was followed in 2023 by He Who Drowned the World, which concludes the Radiant Emperor duology.

Parker-Chan uses they/them pronouns, is queer and genderqueer,^[9][6] and was named after Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.^[10] As of 2023, they live in Melbourne, Australia.^[11] They are married and have a daughter.^[2]

Parker-Chan won the 2022 Astounding Award for Best New Writer^[12] and the British Fantasy Award (the Robert Holdstock Award for Best Fantasy Novel and the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer).^[13]