R. F. Kuang

Frequently asked questions

• How old was R. F. Kuang when she started writing?

  She wrote her debut, The Poppy War, at nineteen during a gap year in China, and it was published shortly before her twenty-second birthday in 2018.

• What is R. F. Kuang's academic background?

  She is a trained historian of modern China. After a History degree at Georgetown, she earned graduate degrees in Chinese Studies at Cambridge and Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, and has pursued a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale. Her scholarship informs her fiction.

• Why do R. F. Kuang's books vary so much in genre?

  Her catalog deliberately spans grimdark military fantasy (the Poppy War trilogy), dark academia (Babel, Katabasis), and contemporary literary satire (Yellowface, Taipei Story). She publishes her fantasy and literary novels through different imprints.

• What awards has R. F. Kuang won?

  She won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer in 2020, and Babel won the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 2023 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel.

• Did R. F. Kuang have a background in debate?

  Yes. She chose Georgetown partly for its championship debate program and coached competitive debate during her gap year in China before her writing career took off.

• Who are R. F. Kuang's literary influences?

  In interviews she has named writers including Vladimir Nabokov, Kazuo Ishiguro, Susanna Clarke, and Joan Didion.