R. F. Kuang is an American fantasy novelist born on May 29, 1996. She gained recognition for her debut novel, The Poppy War, released in 2018, which was followed by the sequels The Dragon Republic in 2019 and The Burning God in 2020. Kuang's stand-alone novel, Babel, or the Necessity of Violence, was published in 2022, and her latest work, Yellowface, came out in 2023.

Kuang holds an undergraduate degree in international economics with a minor in Asian Studies from Georgetown University, and graduate degrees in Sinology from Magdalene College, Cambridge, and University College, Oxford. She is currently pursuing a PhD at Yale University.

Throughout her career, Kuang has received numerous accolades. Babel debuted at the top of The New York Times Best Seller list and won the Blackwell's Book of the Year for Fiction in 2022, along with the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel. Additionally, Kuang has been awarded the Compton Crook Award, the Crawford Award, and the 2020 Astounding Award for Best New Writer, and has been a finalist for the Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, Kitschies, and British Fantasy awards for The Poppy War.