Guest Post: Zen Cho on Giving Power to the Powerless in Sorcerer to the Crown
Editor’s note: Earlier today, we debuted the cover of Zen Cho’s buzzed about debut novel, Sorcerer to the Crown, available September 1 from Ace. Zen was also kind enough to share a bit about what inspired her to write it—a book that explores a magical, Regency-era fantasy world, but does so without erasing the significant (and historically relevant) issue of race from the narrative.
In a well-known 18th century portrait of Lady Elizabeth Murray, great-niece of the First Earl of Mansfield, she is shown with her cousin Dido Elizabeth Belle. Both women are dressed expensively, in glowing luxurious fabrics—Dido smiling impishly as she flees, Elizabeth with a hand out to stop her cousin.
Elizabeth is white. Dido is not.
I came to Britain in 2004, and I found it lonely. As a Chinese Malaysian I had grown up conscious of race and racism as things that affected everyone’s lives. I had not, however, had people throw stones and leftover food at me and my friends for being different.
Over the next few years I looked for things in this country that would make me feel less alone. I am not the only non-white person who has seen Dido peeping out of that painting, dimpling irrepressibly—present, real, but also clearly marginal—and felt a sense of recognition. I am not black, or any more mixed-race than the average Malaysian; I couldn’t lay claim to Dido Belle’s experience and I wouldn’t want to, but I found her image both comforting and intriguing. I’d grown up reading 19th century British novels in Malaysia and had bought into the fiction that, while Britain might be multicultural now, its history was white and racially homogenous.
Sorcerer to the Crown
Hardcover $26.95
Sorcerer to the Crown
By Zen Cho
Hardcover $26.95
But non-white people, and specifically black people, have been present in Britain from very early times. Never in huge numbers, and more in the cities than in the countryside, but they were here, and their influence on British life can still be seen. The footprint they left on literature is perhaps lighter—their history certainly had never made its way to me in Malaysia, even though I read Jane Austen and P. G. Wodehouse and Terry Pratchett growing up.
I started to explore this history in my short stories, like 起狮，行礼 (Rising Lion—The Lion Bows). It seemed natural to continue that exploration in a novel. In Sorcerer to the Crown, I position Zacharias Wythe, England’s first African Sorcerer Royal, smack in the middle of the Regency, that era so familiar to devotees of Austen and Heyer.
Zacharias operates—like us—in an ever more connected world. In the early 1800s the British Empire has been in business for a couple of centuries. It hasn’t yet reached the peak it will attain, culturally and economically, during the Victorian period, but it already has its fingers in many countries’ pies. As Britain’s magical representative, Zacharias can’t ignore or stay aloof from that exercise of power—despite his own compromised position as the child of Africans, born on a slave ship.
Zacharias’s problems are compounded when he encounters female magical prodigy Prunella Gentleman. Prunella’s goal is one any Austen or Heyer woman would recognise: to marry well, and thereby assure her economic security. But her circumstances are partly inspired by those of Dido Elizabeth Belle. She has grown up in a girls’ school in a nebulous position—loved by the headmistress, who took her in when she became an orphan, but working without pay as a nurse, governess, and maid-of-all-work. Prunella might be family, but she’s sent to sit in the kitchen when the real family dines.
But non-white people, and specifically black people, have been present in Britain from very early times. Never in huge numbers, and more in the cities than in the countryside, but they were here, and their influence on British life can still be seen. The footprint they left on literature is perhaps lighter—their history certainly had never made its way to me in Malaysia, even though I read Jane Austen and P. G. Wodehouse and Terry Pratchett growing up.
I started to explore this history in my short stories, like 起狮，行礼 (Rising Lion—The Lion Bows). It seemed natural to continue that exploration in a novel. In Sorcerer to the Crown, I position Zacharias Wythe, England’s first African Sorcerer Royal, smack in the middle of the Regency, that era so familiar to devotees of Austen and Heyer.
Zacharias operates—like us—in an ever more connected world. In the early 1800s the British Empire has been in business for a couple of centuries. It hasn’t yet reached the peak it will attain, culturally and economically, during the Victorian period, but it already has its fingers in many countries’ pies. As Britain’s magical representative, Zacharias can’t ignore or stay aloof from that exercise of power—despite his own compromised position as the child of Africans, born on a slave ship.
Zacharias’s problems are compounded when he encounters female magical prodigy Prunella Gentleman. Prunella’s goal is one any Austen or Heyer woman would recognise: to marry well, and thereby assure her economic security. But her circumstances are partly inspired by those of Dido Elizabeth Belle. She has grown up in a girls’ school in a nebulous position—loved by the headmistress, who took her in when she became an orphan, but working without pay as a nurse, governess, and maid-of-all-work. Prunella might be family, but she’s sent to sit in the kitchen when the real family dines.
Spirits Abroad
NOOK Book $4.49
Spirits Abroad
By Zen Cho
NOOK Book $4.49
But this book is a fantasy, both in that it’s about magicians throwing hexes at one another, and in that it’s a fantasy about power. Zacharias may be the son of slaves, but he is emancipated, and has been made chief of the country’s magicians (though the magicians aren’t particularly happy about that). Prunella’s eyes may be fixed on the Regency marriage mart as a route to independence, but she has another source of power, far more potent: her extraordinary magical talent…and English magic’s biggest discovery in centuries.
In Sorcerer to the Crown, I’ve tried to give power to those who historically didn’t have a lot. That might be the most fantastical thing about the book.
But there are also stroppy magicians enmeshed in intrigues, dragons in disguise, foppish fairies, giant mermaids, and people flying around on clouds. Characters cast spells that go wrong and find themselves hopelessly entangled in hijinks. Women of various descriptions harangue other people at hilarious length. I was thinking about power when I wrote the book, but I wrote it mostly to entertain and comfort myself, as a prophylactic against loneliness. I hope it serves that purpose for others too.
Pre-order Sorcerer to the Crown now.
But this book is a fantasy, both in that it’s about magicians throwing hexes at one another, and in that it’s a fantasy about power. Zacharias may be the son of slaves, but he is emancipated, and has been made chief of the country’s magicians (though the magicians aren’t particularly happy about that). Prunella’s eyes may be fixed on the Regency marriage mart as a route to independence, but she has another source of power, far more potent: her extraordinary magical talent…and English magic’s biggest discovery in centuries.
In Sorcerer to the Crown, I’ve tried to give power to those who historically didn’t have a lot. That might be the most fantastical thing about the book.
But there are also stroppy magicians enmeshed in intrigues, dragons in disguise, foppish fairies, giant mermaids, and people flying around on clouds. Characters cast spells that go wrong and find themselves hopelessly entangled in hijinks. Women of various descriptions harangue other people at hilarious length. I was thinking about power when I wrote the book, but I wrote it mostly to entertain and comfort myself, as a prophylactic against loneliness. I hope it serves that purpose for others too.
Pre-order Sorcerer to the Crown now.