#1 Sunday Times bestseller for their first novel, USA Today bestseller for their second; Shelley’s historical fantasy novels have quickly taken the world by storm.

She Who Became the Sun became the first novel by an Australian writer to ever be nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel – the preeminent international award for science fiction and fantasy – and also won two British Fantasy Awards.

She Who Became the Sun and its sequel, He Who Drowned the World are alternate histories set in 14th Century China, featuring “murderous queers make extremely bad life decisions”. They are epics of political machinations, war, power, sexuality and identity – and quite unlike anything else you’ll have read in some time.

Don’t miss this show-stopping special – one of two events that open this year’s festival weekend.