In March 2020, Zhao signed a two-book deal with
Penguin Teen Canada for a
young adult (YA)
mecha reimagining of the rise of the Chinese
Empress Wu. Rock the Boat, the children's imprint of
Oneworld Publications, acquired the UK rights in May 2021. They described the series as a "monstrous amalgamation of my love for
anime and my love for
Chinese harem dramas". The first installment in the series,
Iron Widow, was published in September 2021 and reached 1 in the Young Adult Hardcover category of the
New York Times Best Seller list. The second installment in the series,
Heavenly Tyrant, was scheduled for release in April 2024; however, the release date was delayed. The novel was eventually released on 24 December 2024. In September 2020, Zhao went
viral, first on a Twitter thread followed by their first YouTube video, for their criticisms of
Disney's live-action
Mulan remake and its cultural inaccuracies. They credit their presence on the Internet as a self-described "Chinese history
memer" for the success of
Iron Widow, which was initially expected to only appeal to a niche audience. Jessica Singer, for
CBC News in August 2021, highlighted the impact of
BookTok on sales of young adult fiction. Singer wrote that "books like
Iron Widow by Canadian author Xiran Jay Zhao are already gaining popularity online, even before the book's release date in late September". Kara Savoy, Penguin Random House Canada's integrated marketing director, told Singer that "when Xiran did an unboxing video of their advanced copies a few weeks ago [on TikTok], the pre-sale numbers in the U.S. went up 600 per cent that week". an imprint of
Simon & Schuster. It was released on 10 May 2022. The novel debuted at #4 on the
New York Times Best Seller list in the Children's Middle Grade Hardcover category; it remained on the list for two weeks. Alec Scott, for
The Globe and Mail, compared
Zachary Ying to Zhao's
Iron Widow and commented that "the two books speak to Zhao's obsessions – both with anime, the visual storytelling popularized in Japan that's gone global, and with Chinese history and mythology. [...] In both novels, the mythic past gets translated into the future. [...] For all their differences of mood, the novels rescue what is valuable to Zhao in Chinese history and myth, and project it forward – creating artistic acts of cultural reappropriation". Zhao was a finalist for the
Astounding Award for Best New Writer in 2022. In 2023, they received enough votes to be a finalist again but were declared ineligible and removed from the ballot. It later emerged that this was due to
self-censorship by the
Hugo Award administrators of the
81st World Science Fiction Convention – which was held in
Chengdu, China – in order to appease the Chinese government, which has a strict
censorship regime. Zhao made a guest appearance for an episode of the
ABC/
CBC documentary series
Stuff the British Stole revolving around items looted during the
Boxer Rebellion that aired in November 2022. In December 2023, Zhao exposed
Cait Corrain's "pattern of leaving one-star reviews through fake
Goodreads accounts, mostly on the debut works of first-time writers of color, while leaving positive reviews on her own forthcoming book". This resulted in Corrain being dropped by her publishers. In 2024, Zhao won the
Astounding Award for Best New Writer after the award sponsor
Dell Magazines extended the eligibility requirements. ==Bibliography==