The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism and religious discrimination.

Throughout the 21st century, fantasy novels have become increasingly influenced by Asian culture and folklore, with a growing number of Asian authors contributing to the genre—a shift that represents a broader movement away from fantasy’s Eurocentric roots. J. R. R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, is widely regarded as the father of modern fantasy writing and drew inspiration from the European Middle Ages when crafting his universe, Middle-earth. This medievalist aesthetic became the genre standard, and in its most sinister capacity, it has corresponded to exclusionary racial messaging. As Kora Quinn of Illumination Journal explains,

‘Habits of whiteness’ is a term used to describe the phenomenon of readers automatically assuming all the main characters are white unless the author specifically describes them as having black or brown skin. The reason for this is, simply, that the majority of medieval Europe was white (Quinn, Kora. “Eurocentricity and Race in Modern Fantasy.” Illumination Journal, 11 Oct. 2020).

The racial messaging of traditional fantasy universes is not limited to human characters. The fictional racial categories popularized by Tolkien—elves, dwarves, etc.—have been criticized in recent years for their ties to real-world racism. In a 1964 interview with the BBC, Tolkien likened the dwarves of Middle Earth to Jews, making it clear that his dwarves’ preoccupation with valuable metals and gems is not merely a benign characteristic but one based in antisemitic stereotypes (Quinn). As time has passed and more audiences have raised awareness about the racially problematic aspects of traditional fantasy worlds, demand has increased for diversification of the genre, paving the way for the work of authors of color and their own visions of otherworldly realms to gain more mainstream prominence.

Major works of “Asian fantasy” released since the early 2000s include R. F. Kuang’s The Poppy War, Tasha Suri’s The Jasmine Throne, and Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim, but the term “Asian fantasy” itself has stirred up controversy, as many authors of Asian descent have pointed out that it minimizes the vast diversity of Asian cultures to a monolith and flattens readers’ understandings of what it is to be Asian. Kuang, for example, has remarked on the subject, “Asian doesn’t really make a lot of sense, either as a literary category or as an identity category. Obviously, there are a lot of different things that fall under the subcategory of Asian…so when we call works just blanket ‘Asian,’ that belies an entire world of difference” (Saxeni, Kalyani. “What’s in a Genre Name? The Problem With ‘Asian Fantasy.’” NPR, 30 May 2021). This flattening through the cultivation of an “Asian fantasy” aesthetic has resulted in non-East Asian groups, such as South Asians, Southeast Asians, Central Asians, and Western Asians, experiencing erasure. Nevertheless, Suri, a British author of Punjabi descent, told NPR that she has conflicted feelings about the term, reflecting, “It’s a difficult one because I don’t think there’s a huge amount of South Asian fantasy that is getting acquired and promoted and published in the West. And I think it’s also quite a necessary term…because it gives readers something to cling on to” (Saxeni).

As Kuang’s and Suri’s differing opinions demonstrate, Asian authors find themselves at the forefront of a new wave of fantasy and are faced with difficult questions regarding the genre’s racial politics moving forward. With The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Vo responds to these questions by presenting the cultural influences of her universe in a highly normalized, understated way. As she told Reactor (the online magazine released by Salt and Fortune’s publisher, Tor Publishing Group), “It’s got influences from Tang China, Heian Japan, and some of the things I’ve absorbed from my parents’ experiences in the Vietnamese diaspora as well, a certain sense of unease, defiance and displacement” (“Revealing The Empress of Salt and Fortune an Publishing in the Age of Diaspora Fantasy.” Reactor, 7 Aug. 2019). These influences are reflected not just in the material culture of Anh but also in its sociopolitical structures and in the themes that Vo explores throughout the text. By incorporating such frequent allusions without pomp or explanation, Vo signals to readers that her fantasy universe should be treated with the same mainstream acceptance as more traditional, Tolkienian universes.