Sunbirth - by An Yu (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the celebrated author of Ghost Music and Braised Pork, a bewitching and atmospheric novel following two sisters in an isolated village as the sun begins to diminish above them

In Five Poems Lake, a small village surrounded by impenetrable deserts, the sun is slowly disappearing overhead. A young woman keeps one apprehensive eye on the sky above as she tends the pharmacy of traditional medicine that belonged to her great grandfather. She has few customers, and even fewer visitors: her older sister Dong Ji, her last living relative, works at a wellness parlor across town for those who can afford it--which, during these strange and difficult days, is not many.

Five Poems Lake had fallen on hard times long before the sun began shrinking, but now, every few days, a new sliver disappears. As the temperature drops and the lake freezes over, the population of the town realizes that they will soon die--if not of the cold and starvation, then of despair. When the Beacons begin to appear--ordinary people with heads replaced by searing, blinding light, like miniature suns--the town's residents wonder if they may hold the answer to their salvation, or if they are just another sign of impending ruin. A photograph belonging to their father, who died mysteriously twelve years ago, may offer a clue in the mystery of the Beacons, and Dong Ji and her sister wonder if they may finally learn what happened to their father.

With a richly surreal sensibility that has earned comparisons to the work of Haruki Murakami, and anchored by searching curiosity and wisdom, in Sunbirth An Yu honors the unique relationship held between sisters and asks how much we can ever know about the deepest mysteries of the world.

Review Quotes

Praise for Sunbirth:

Longlisted for the 2026 Climate Fiction Prize

Finalist for the 2026 Foreword Indie Prize for Literary Fiction

A Washington Independent Review of Books Best Book of 2025

A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2025

"Yu offers strong insights about sisterhood and the roles siblings fall into, but it's her striking imagery that allows the most space for mystery and impact."--Amiee Bender, New York Times

"Yu's new book abounds with evocative images and haunting moral choices."--Reactor Magazine

"Yu delivers an arresting story of two sisters grappling with their past as the gradual disappearance of the sun throws their town into chaos . . ., the narrative dives into the painful issue of family secrets, exploring questions of whether they should be exposed or remain buried. . . . This confirms Yu's mastery of the mesmerizing and strange."--Publishers Weekly

"Yu's new work of literary fiction offers elements of magical realism and explores themes of sisterhood and grief while it unfolds an unusual premise . . . Mystery, loss, despair, and hope mingle in the novel. Yu excels at creating the setting, described in precise detail, and at crafting a character-driven reading experience . . . Yu's fans will enjoy this atmospheric and surreal novel. Suggest as well to readers of Sayaka Murata and Bae Suah."--Library Journal

"Enthralling and surreal, An Yu's dystopian novel Sunbirth . . . [is] an illuminating novel about what people choose to preserve at the end of the world."--Michelle Schingler, Foreword Magazine

"Dizzying . . . Introspective and imaginative, expertly deploying speculative elements to examine identity, grief and existential longing with sublime emotional impact . . . for readers who love richly atmospheric novels or delight in mulling over the metaphysical alongside complicated family dynamics, Sunbirth is a surreal masterpiece to ponder with pleasure."--Stephanie Harrison, BookPage

"Sometimes, I just want to pick up a delightfully strange novel with a quirky premise and great characters. When that mood strikes, An Yu is the perfect choice. . . Sunbirth is engrossing and strange in the best possible ways. It highlights the bigger-than-life feeling that it's our relationships that make the biggest impact on our lives, even as the future of the human race is uncertain. If you love character-driven science fiction, this quirky book is a must-read novel of 2025."--Book Riot

Praise for Ghost Music:

Named a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and Paperback Row Selection

Named a Best Book of the Year by TIME and Washington Independent Review of Books

"Spellbinding and atmospheric . . . With its quiet, dreamy bending of reality and its precise depiction of many different strains of alienation, Ghost Music is an evocative exploration of what it means to live fully--and the potential consequences of failing to do so . . . There's something here of early Murakami's graceful, open-ended approach to the uncanny, as well as the vivid yet muted emotionality of Patrick Modiano or Katie Kitamura."--Alexandra Kleeman, New York Times Book Review

"An intriguing book that knits together music and life to touch on something profound."--Claire Kohda, Guardian

"A novel haunted in every way--psychologically, philosophically, and literally. This intricate, eerie book leaves the reader with more questions than answers, the kind of uncanny questions that reverberate in your mind with a tinny echo of reality . . . Ghost Music shows us how we might find the trigger that wakes us up, forces us to confront our demons, and helps us heal."--Washington Independent Review of Books

"Talking mushrooms, classical music, and the complexities of identity infuse a semisurreal novel that contrasts the immediacy of daily life in Beijing with a mesmerizing dreamscape . . . Simply told yet enigmatic . . . Dreamy and questioning, an unsettling novel composed of wistful notes."--Kirkus Reviews

"Replete with dreamlike sequences, enclosed walls, and talking mushroom . . . Those who enjoyed Yu's previous work or surrealistic fiction like Hiroko Oyamada's The Hole will likely welcome her latest offering."--Library Journal

"Ethereal . . . Beautifully metaphoric and insightful . . . Yu's lyrical language and atmospheric descriptions bring out the contrast between Song Yan's oppressive, superficial reality and the hypnotic world where she converses with fungi."--BookPage

"This novel of grief, survival, and artistic ambitions captures the uncanny despair of loneliness and the liberating effort of beginning a new life."--Isle McElroy, Vulture

"A melancholic, mysterious exploration of a young Beijing pianist grappling with family secrets, a distant husband and the meaning of music and expression . . . [Song Yan] remains an intriguing hero in her restrained, calm acceptance of her lot."--Observer (UK)

"Beautiful prose and claustrophobic imagery . . . intensely evokes its protagonist's alienation."--New Statesman (UK)

"Yu mesmerizes with this surreal story of music and mushrooms . . . As Song Yan relentlessly surges toward independence and away from solitude and loneliness, Yu's blistering narrative reaches a plaintive end. Readers will be enthralled."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"An atmospheric study in disconnected relationships . . . Yu delivers another intimate, intricate performance."--Booklist

"Juxtaposing unreal imagery and distinctive prose with very human characters, Ghost Music is a novel about learning to cope with lost dreams and missed opportunities."--Foreword Reviews

"Often stunning . . . Mixes the real and the surreal, blurring dreamworlds and the everyday . . . Transporting, searching, and poetic, Yu's weird, mutated storytelling wonderfully marries mundane and deep existential dilemmas."--The List (UK)

"An Yu's lush, delicate novel Ghost Music unfolds like Claude Debussy's atmospheric piece for solo piano Rêverie, lulling the reader into protagonist Song Yan's surrealistic daydream of a life. As the former pianist and young wife confronts the stark reality of her marriage with suppressed but deeply felt emotions, she begins to test the limits of her freedom and finds that like the mysterious mushrooms that appear in the mail and in her dreams, she, too, may thrive in darkness."--Chris Cander, USA Today-bestselling author of The Weight of a Piano

"Enthralling and elegant, Ghost Music conjures a world I have never seen before: dreamlike, mysterious, suspenseful in the secrets it reveals, while always being grounded in the sensory. The narrator's wise sensibility drew me in, but I stayed for the sentences--each one more astonishing than the next, they revealed an extraordinary depth of feeling. Like a Ryuichi Sakamoto composition, this novel casts a haunting spell."--Sanaë Lemoine, author of The Margot Affair

"Dreamlike and diurnal, haunted and lucid, ambivalent and hopeful, An Yu's Ghost Music pulses with profound mystery. A disquieting, mesmerizing novel."--Sara Freeman, author of Tides

"To read Ghost Music's spare prose is to discover its cogency. Yu allows our quiet manias to grow apace with her staggering imagination. An Yu's second novel affirms her as one of our most important writers."--Zain Khalid, author of Brother Alive

Praise for Braised Pork:

"Written with a shimmering lightness that maintains, as Jia Jia thinks of her watery visions, 'some balance between mystery and simplicity.'"--Wall Street Journal

"An original and electric narrative . . . Yu's language is sparse yet surreal . . . In Braised Pork, Yu raises provocative questions about why we get fixated on those moments--and how they might relate to the company we crave."--TIME, "New Books You Should Read"

"Braised Pork's central journey is interior: the incremental and circuitous process of a human mind trying to come to terms with itself . . . A haunting, coolly written novel . . . Intensely atmospheric."--Los Angeles Review of Books

"Yu's prose is crisp and never tedious, with bursts of startling imagery amid the otherwise restrained style."--New York Times Book Review

"A startlingly original debut . . . While it's easy to see that Braised Pork borrows something of Haruki Murakami's brand of strange melancholia, there's a startlingly original imagination of its own at work here . . . A sensitive portrait of alienated young womanhood."--Guardian

"Dreamy and surreal . . . What follows is her journey of rediscovery--of her passion, of her spirituality, of her artistic abilities, and of herself--that evolves in her real life and in dreams. It's otherworldly and deeply moving."--BuzzFeed

"In searching for answers to her husband's untimely death, a young widow in Beijing finds room to explore her own existential angst . . . Yu's original debut spins an increasingly surreal tale which brilliantly mirrors Jia Jia's own discombobulation . . . Proof positive that rebirths are entirely possible--even in one lifetime."--Kirkus Reviews

"An's poignant debut tells the story of a young woman trying to find purpose in her life in the wake of disorienting personal tragedy . . . Readers will be moved by An's mature meditation on the often inexplicable forces that shape the trajectory of an individual life."--Publishers Weekly

"Poignant . . . A moving, magical parable about a young woman's journey of self-discovery and empowerment . . . Enchanting."--Shelf Awareness

"Come for the mystery, stay for self-discovery of a liberated woman."--Literary Hub

"Bold yet understated, Braised Pork is the debut of a supremely confident and gifted writer."--Katie Kitamura, author of A Separation

"This exquisite novel is many things: a detective story in which the real object of pursuit is how one makes meaning of a sometimes ineffable existence; a meditation on the talismanic power of art and the indefatigability of the human spirit; and a many-faceted, perfectly cut gem of psychological portraiture set in well-wrought sentences burnished to a gorgeous luster. The emotions in this book keep pace with you, shadowing you with a quiet intensity, until in the last stretch they overtake you completely."--Matthew Thomas, New York Times-bestselling author of We Are Not Ourselves

"Yu is a fantastic storyteller. The prose is sly and controlled, yet page after page, I found myself spellbound by a story that does what all writers hope to do, which is to make the familiar unfamiliar."--Weike Wang, author of Chemistry

"What a singular, slippery, transfixing novel this is. An Yu achieves a hypnotizing emotional clarity as she takes her narrator ever further from a stifling life in Beijing into a watery realm unlike any I've read before."--Idra Novey, author of Those Who Knew

"Braised Pork is mesmerizing, incisive, and utterly disarming. An Yu writes beautifully about loneliness, the experience of isolation--from others, from one's own past--and the possibility of human connection, however fragile."--Rosie Price, author of What Red Was

"What a voice An Yu unfurls in Braised Pork. So elegant and poised, so tuned to the great mysteries of love and loss. Like a breeze on a still day, hers is a sound I didn't know I needed until I felt it. Braised Pork is a major debut."--John Freeman

About the Author

AN YU is the author of Braised Pork and Ghost Music. She was born and raised in Beijing and studied in New York and Paris. A graduate of the NYU MFA in Creative Writing, she writes her fiction in English and lives in Hong Kong.