Amélie Wen Zhao

Zhao grew up between Paris and Beijing, moved to New York for university and was working in finance when Blood Heir sold at auction. Weeks before publication in 2019 she withdrew it herself, after readers with advance copies said its indentured labour plot read as careless about American chattel slavery; she had written it about human trafficking in Asia. She had the manuscript read again, revised the framing and published it later that year. Song of Silver, Flame Like Night followed, built out of Chinese mythology. The episode is still cited in arguments about how publishing handles online criticism, usually by people on opposite sides of it.