Fonda Lee

Fonda Lee (born March 10, 1979) is a Canadian-American author of speculative fiction. She is best known for writing The Green Bone Saga, the first of which, Jade City, won the 2018 World Fantasy Award and was named one of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time by Time magazine. The Green Bone Saga was also included on NPR's list, "50 Favorite Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the Past Decade".

Biography

Lee was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and resided in Portland, Oregon, and currently resides in the Boston area of the United States. She attended Stanford University where she earned her MBA. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a corporate strategist. Lee is a martial artist and has earned black belts in karate and kung fu.

Career

Lee's debut young adult science fiction novel, Zeroboxer, was published by Flux Books and nominated for the 2015 Andre Norton Award. It received positive reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, which described it as "top-notch science fiction and a great sports novel too".

Lee's 2017 short story "Old Souls", was published in Where the Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction & Fantasy, and was nominated for the 2018 Aurora Award for Best Short Fiction and the 2018 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction. Lee's career continued as she published the Exo duology for young adults in 2017 and 2018; both novels were well-received critically.

Her debut novel for adults, Jade City, was the first in The Green Bone Saga. It was published by Orbit Books in 2017 to critical acclaim. Jade City won the 2018 World Fantasy Award and Aurora Award for Best Novel, and was a finalist for the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novel and 2018 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. Jade City was included on Time magazine's list "The Best Fantasy Books of All Time". The second in the series, Jade War, published in 2019, was a finalist for the Locus Award, Dragon Award, Aurora Award, and Ignyte Award. The third volume of the series, Jade Legacy, was published in 2021 and also received acclaim, becoming a finalist for the 2022 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, the 2022 Aurora Award for Best Novel, and a nomination for the Dragon Award for Best Novel. The Green Bone Saga as a whole was a finalist for the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Series and was included on NPR's list, "50 Favorite Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the Past Decade". In 2022, Subterranean Press published Lee's standalone novella set prior to the events of The Green Bone Saga entitled The Jade Setter of Janloon.

In 2020, it was announced that a television series based on Jade City was being developed at Peacock, with Lee serving as a consulting producer. In July 2022, it was announced that Peacock had canceled the project, but Lee shared on Twitter that the team were seeking another service to take it up.

Lee's fantasy novella Untethered Sky was published by Tor.com in April 2023.

In December 2022, Lee announced that she was collaborating with Shannon Lee (no relation), the daughter of the late actor and martial artist Bruce Lee, on a series of young adult fantasy novels inspired by Bruce Lee's writings. The first book, Breath of the Dragon, was published in January 2025 by Wednesday Books.

Orbit Books published Fonda Lee's "cyberpunk samurai space opera" novel The Last Contract of Isako in May 2026.