Harvill Secker picks up An Yu's 'mesmerising' speculative novel

Harvill Secker to publish the "strange and  mesmerising" new novel from An Yu.

UK and Commonwealth rights for Sunbirth were acquired by Kate Harvey from Anna Webber, who made the deal while at United Agents and brought the contract over to AM Heath, when she joined last summer. Harvill Secker senior editor Ellie Steel will publish the novel in July 2025.

In Five Poems Lake, a town surrounded by impenetrable deserts, the sun is slowly disappearing overhead. A young woman keeps an apprehensive eye on the sky above as she tends her family’s pharmacy of traditional medicine. Her elder sister, Dong Ji, works at a wellness parlour across town for those who can afford it.  

Five Poems Lake fell on hard times long before the sun began to shrink, but now, every few days, a new sliver disappears. As the temperature drops and the lake freezes over, the inhabitants of the town realise that there is no way they can survive. But when the Beacons appear – ordinary people with heads replaced by searing, blinding light, like miniature suns – the residents wonder if they may hold the answer to their salvation, or if they are just another sign of impending ruin.  

Yu was born and raised in Beijing. She left at the age of 18 to study in New York. A graduate of the NYU MFA in Creative Writing, she writes her fiction in English and lives in Hong Kong. Her previous novels include Braised Pork and Ghost Music (both published by Vintage). 

Yu said: “Sunbirth was born, curiously, from music. Slow, loud, driving and monolithic songs. Apocalyptic yet celebratory. Though this novel is set in an isolated town under a dying sun, to me, the story is about the sparks of warmth and light that lie abundant within its inhabitants.”

Steel added: “There’s a singular magic to An Yu’s work: a particular mood and tone praised by her readers and fellow authors as bold yet understated, seductive, enigmatic. Sunbirth confirms her as one of the most original writers working today: a beautiful, strange and completely mesmerising novel for fans of books like Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police and speculative fiction at its best.”