

But as the title suggests, She Who Became the Sun isn’t about a boy named Zhu Yuanzhang who rises from his peasant origins to rule a united China it’s about a girl who does the same. Shelley Parker-Chan’s new novel She Who Became the Sun lays claim to the story of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang. In the case of a story based on a person from history or myth, the discussion broadens: is ownership even a useful concept in that case? If a real-life person’s story fundamentally belongs only to that person, can that story be re-written, re-envisioned, transformed-and in the process, does it evolve into a new story, with a new answer to whose story it has become? Who do stories belong to? Some would say a story belongs to the author who wrote it, and copyright law would back up that interpretation, at least for the first 75 years after publication.
