Emperor Li Yu & Chairman Mao Graphic Novel Coming From 23rd Street

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Posted in: Comics | Tagged: 23rd Street, Chairman Mao, Emperor Li Yu, graphic novel

Ink & Blood: Poetry and Power in the Lives of Emperor Li Yu and Chairman Mao is a new graphic novel by Chun Yu and Sungyoon Choi

Ink & Blood: Poetry and Power in the Lives of Emperor Li Yu and Chairman Mao is a new graphic novel written by Chun Yu and drawn by Sungyoon Choi. The graphic novel tells the tale of the 10th-century Chinese emperor, whose dynasty collapsed due to his love of poetry, and the 20th-century Communist leader, who also wrote poetry.

Mark Siegel at 23rd Street landed world rights to Ink & Blood: Poetry and Power in the Lives of Emperor Li Yu and Chairman Mao, for publication in 2027. The deal was handled by Chun Yu’s agent, Jill Marsall, at Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, and Sungyoon Choi’s agent, Judy Hansen, at Hansen Literary. Sierra Hahn and Shawna Gore will also edit.

Chun Yu is a bilingual poet and translator working in English and Chinese, as well as a graphic novelist, multimedia artist, environmental installation artist, scientist, and cultural community connector. She was born and raised in China, graduating from Peking University with B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry, and came to the United States to pursue her scientific career, with a PhD in biomaterials from Rutgers University and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Science and Technology (HST), where she began writing poetry and stories.

Chun Yu’s first book, Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, was published by Simon & Schuster, and she contributed to the award-winning anthology Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace. Chun Yu has won a San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Grant for her poetry, is a 2023 Library Laureate of San Francisco Public Library and an honoree of the YBCA 100 award (2020) for creative changemakers and community leaders. She has received a Zellerbach grant and two San Francisco Arts Commission grants for Two Languages/One Community, a multimedia program she co-founded with poet Michael Warr to connect Chinese American and African American communities through poetry writing and storytelling; a San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant for Tales of the Yellow Family, a graphic novel on Chinese American immigration history; a Sankofa grant from Alliance for California Traditional Arts for Paper Son Soldiers, a multimedia project about Chinese American soldiers who came to the U.S. as paper sons through Angel Island and fought in WWII as American soldiers.

Sung Yoon Choi is also based in the San Francisco Bay area. Originally from Seoul, Korea, she attended School of Visual Arts and worked as a graphic novelist and an editorial illustrator in New York City. She recently published Korean American Cooking Comics, which details the food she cooks and her life in the United States.

Macmillan Publishers publishes 23rd Street Books, a new imprint dedicated to publishing graphic novels for adults. Mark Siegel is the Vice President, Executive Editorial, and Creative Director for both First Second and 23rd Street Books. Editorial Director Calista Brill, who joined First Second in 2008, will work closely with Siegel on the direction of both imprints

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