“I write fantasy, but my story draws inspiration from themes I see in the real world today.
Zhao had previously said on her website that she had set out to create “a diverse cast, many of which are beloved and dear to a third-culture kid like myself … a tawny-skinned minority of a Russian-esque princess a disowned and dishonoured Asian-esque assassin an islander/Caribbean-esque child warrior a Middle-Eastern-esque soldier”. “The narrative and history of slavery in the US is not something I can, would, or intended to write, but I recognise that I am not writing in merely my own cultural context,” she wrote. Zhao, who raised in Beijing and emigrated from China to the US at the age of 18, said she wrote the book “from my immediate cultural perspective”, writing that the slavery storylines in her novel “represent a specific critique of the epidemic of indentured labor and human trafficking prevalent in many industries across Asia, including in my own home country”. This is not that this is an apology,” wrote Zhao on 30 January, adding that she was “grateful to those who have raised questions around representation, coding, and themes in my book”.
“It was never my intention to bring harm to any reader of this valued community, particularly those for whom I seek to write and empower … I don’t wish to clarify, defend or have anyone defend me. In comparison with other publishing controversies attracting ire online, such as Keira Drake’s YA novel The Continent, which was slammed for its “white saviour” narrative, and picture book A Birthday Cake for George Washington, which was withdrawn after its upbeat portrayal of slavery was questioned, criticism of Zhao’s novel was relatively confined, possibly because the author responded so fast in cancelling her book release.
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