Rebecca F. Kuang is an American novelist known for her remarkable contributions to the fantasy genre. Her debut novel, The Poppy War, was released in 2018, followed by its sequels The Dragon Republic in 2019 and The Burning God in 2020. In 2022, Kuang released a standalone novel, Babel, or the Necessity of Violence, which debuted at the top of The New York Times Best Seller list and won the Blackwell's Book of the Year for Fiction and the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel. Her most recent novel is the satirical Yellowface, published in 2023.
Kuang is not only a novelist but also a scholar. She holds an undergraduate degree in international economics with a minor in Asian Studies from Georgetown University and has pursued graduate studies in Sinology at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and University College, Oxford. Currently, she is working towards a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University.
Her work has garnered numerous accolades, including the Compton Crook Award, the Crawford Award, and the 2020 Astounding Award for Best New Writer. Kuang has also been a finalist for the Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, Kitschies, and British Fantasy Awards.