Inspired by the glory of Tang Dynasty China in the eighth century, Guy Gavriel Kay melds history and the fantastic into something both powerful and emotionally compelling. Under Heaven is a novel on the grandest narrative scale, encompassing the intimate details of individual lives in an unforgettable time and place.
Shen Tai is the son of a general who led the forces of imperial Kitai in that empire's last war against their western enemies from Tagur, twenty years before. Forty thousand men on both sides were slain beside a remote mountain lake. General Shen Gao himself has died recently. To honour his father's memory, Tai has spent two years of official mourning alone at the battle site among the ghosts of the dead, laying to rest their unburied bones.
View the Reading Guide for Under HeavenUnder Heaven has won Sunburst Award, for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.
Nominated in the Best Novel category at the World Fantasy Awards.
Under Heaven was nominated for an Aurora Award, for best SF/Fantasy Novel. Awarded June 2011.
Under Heaven was nominated for the 2011 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature.
Fantasy Faction website - The World of Guy Gavriel Kay — March 16th, 2011.
The American Library Association picked Under Heaven as the best fantasy novel of 2010, naming it to their 2011 Reading List.
Click here for details.
GGK was interviewed by CBC News for The National on the future of fantasy — July 27th, 2011.
Under Heaven made Fantasy Literature's best of the year list (2010) for both the printed book itself and Simon Vance's reading of the audio version.
Read the details here.
In its year-end catalogue sent to members, the Science Fiction Book Club announced UNDER HEAVEN as its Editors' Pick Book of the Year (2010).
The Globe & Mail listed Under Heaven among the top book of 2010.
The Romantic Times nominated Under Heaven for Best Fantasy Novel of 2010.
Under Heaven was chosen as one of the Washington Post's 'Best Fiction and Poetry of 2010' picks.
Fantastic profile on Guy Gavriel Kay in the New Zealand Herald
Under Heaven receives rave review on Bookslut.com
Guy Gavriel Kay guest blogs for BSC Review
GUY GAVRIEL KAY is the author of ten previous novels and a volume of poetry. He won the 2008 World Fantasy Award for his novel Ysabel and the International Goliardos
Prize, and is a two-time winner of the Aurora Award. His works have been translated into more than twenty languages and have appeared on bestseller lists around the world.