XIRAN JAY ZHAO returns to the world of Iron Widow with the sequel, Heavenly Tyrant, which follows Zetian who must balance dangerous politics with a new quest for vengeance.
We asked Xiran what their desert island reads are and what inspired their book.
What are you reading now?
Thomas Sankara Speaks, a collection of speeches by the leader of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987. He was an incredible speaker who was murdered in a French-backed coup after 4 years of implementing progressive and anti-imperialist policies. He was particularly dedicated to the emancipation of working women, recognising the compounding impacts of class society on female oppression. I mean just listen to this: ‘Women’s fate is bound up with that of an exploited male. However, this solidarity, arising from the exploitation that both men and women suffer and that binds them together historically, must not cause us to lose sight of the specific reality of the woman’s situation. The conditions of her life are determined by more than economic factors, and they show that she is a victim of a specific oppression. The specific character of this oppression cannot be explained away by setting up an equal sign or by falling into easy and childish simplifications. It is true that both she and the male worker are condemned to silence by their exploitation. But under the current economic system, the worker’s wife is also condemned to silence by her worker husband. In other words, in addition to the class exploitation common to both of them, women must confront a particular set of relations that exist between them and men, relations of conflict and violence that use physical differences as their pretext.’
If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only have five books – what would they be?
- Gray’s Anatomy. Medical knowledge is going to be vital, and maybe if I can ever get off the island I’ll be able to ace medical school after.
- Das Kapital by Karl Marx. With no distractions, perhaps I’ll finally read it all the way through.
- Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. I will be forced to read those sewer chapters without skipping a word. And maybe they’ll help me build sewers on the island.
- War and Peace. I’m curious about what the hype is, but it’s not a book I’d pick up and read in my regular life.
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms in original Chinese. I could finally dedicate full time to keeping track of the entire cast of characters.
Where is your favourite place to read?
In my bed. When I have insomnia (which is often) I tend to whip out my e-reader.
Do you read one book at a time or multiple?
Always multiple. I have very severe ADHD and I’m a big Mood Reader, as in I really have to be in the mood for something to get through it, at no fault of any particular book.
Do you use a bookmark or fold the corners of pages?
Bookmarks, of course! I don’t like damaging the pages of books.
What can you tell us about your sequel Heavenly Tyrant?
It’s very different from Iron Widow, much slower-paced, introspective and political. If Iron Widow is the furious storm that toppled the dystopian government, then Heavenly Tyrant is the massive question of ‘what now?’ that comes after. Raging at how a government handles its populace and economy is all fun and games until you’re the one in the position they were in and facing the decisions and constraints they faced. Zetian will really have to grapple with the consequences of what she’s done and how much further she’s willing to go to make all the bloodshed mean something.
What kind of challenges will your character Zetian face in this novel?
She has overthrown the government of her society…except she didn’t do it with a proper mass movement and had even played up a negative image of herself to profit off of people’s attention and clicks in the months prior. Now she has to cling to power while nobody likes her or wants her there. There’s a lot she didn’t think through before taking action at the end of Iron Widow, and it’s all going to come back to bite her.
What inspired the mythological elements in your story?
The whole origin story of Iron Widow is that I was compelled to write it after the anime Darling in the Franxx didn’t go the direction I wished it had with its basic concept of ‘boys and girls pairing together to pilot giant mechas.’ Franxx also heavily featured the wing-sharing bird, a Chinese myth creature, as a motif. Me basing all the mechas in IW off of Chinese myth creatures, then, was a sort of reclaiming. Which isn’t to say that Franxx used it wrong or anything; it’s more like watching someone do something neat with something borrowed from your house and so you go rummaging through your house as well to do stuff with what’s there. Plus, it made the mechas a lot more unique and easy to design in my head.
What book character would you be, and why?
I think I’d be a weird side character that the protagonists have to work with while side-eyeing each other behind my back. Adair from the Market of Monsters trilogy is coming to mind.
If you could meet one author (living or dead) – who would it be and why?
I’d love to meet Wu Cheng’en, the author of Journey to the West. I want to ask him about his inspirations.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Xiran Jay Zhao is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the ‘Iron Widow’ series. A first-gen Hui Chinese immigrant from small-town China to Vancouver, Canada, they were raised by the internet and made the inexplicable decision to leave their biochem degree in the dust to write books and make educational content instead.
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