We chat with author Wen-yi Lee about When They Burned The Butterfly, which is a fierce, glamorous adult fantasy debut, Silvia Moreno-Garcia meets Fonda Lee, with the feverish intensity of R.F. Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy.
Hi, Wen-yi! Welcome back! It’s been about a year since we last spoke. How have you been and what have you been up to?
Hi, thanks for having me back! Absolutely wild that it’s already been a year. Well, I’ve mostly been working on releasing my second book, my adult debut, called When They Burned the Butterfly.
Your latest novel, When They Burned the Butterfly, is out October 21st! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Fire magic girl gang lesbians.
What can readers expect?
A sapphic historical fantasy set in 1970s newly-independent and postcolonial Singapore, where the Chinese secret societies have magic derived from gods, including an all-female gang called Red Butterfly who have fire magic. It’s about Adeline, the schoolgirl who becomes entangled with them (and one of their hot leaders) after the death of her mother in a mysterious house fire. It’s about survival and coming-of-age and rapid transformation for both Adeline and the modernizing city in the background; it’s also about different forms of womanhood.
It’s drastically different from my first book, The Dark We Know, which was a very secluded, intimate YA horror. This one operates on a country-wide scale with multiple moving factions, while still I think keeping that single character’s arc at its core. There’s a lot of layers in this and I’m really proud of it.
Where did the inspiration for When They Burned the Butterfly come from?
This is the most Gen Z answer I’ll ever give: Tiktok.
Specifically, I was sent this historical facts sort of TikTok about a girl gang called Red Butterfly that existed in Singapore in the 50s and 60s, and I was just immediately hooked by the idea. I’ve always been drawn to strong and unorthodox female figures. But specifically, the predominant image of Chinese secret societies is so hypermasculine and patriarchal. I kept wondering how those positions and negotiations of power would change when it was women. And then I started digging into postcolonial Singapore’s shifting landscape and connecting it to the idea of metamorphosis and anxiety over survival, and it all came together.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I adore a lot of it–this book is especially close to home and heart–but I constantly circle back to Adeline. The book is really her story and her coming-of-age and her choices as she decides who she wants to be in this new world she’s been thrust into. One of my favourite early reviews affectionately called her a bitch, and that’s exactly what I was aiming for–she’s very prickly, she’s kind of snippy and feral, she’s the yowling wet cat you pluck from the garbage, but she’s got a ton of hurt and heart.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
Balancing the scale of the story I think was a big one–weaving the intensely intimate with the much larger backdrop. I had to take it apart again and again and figure out how to make sure every event was pushing Adeline another step further towards the destination, character-wise.
But also historicity! There’s a lot of real historical texture in this, from mundane details like the type of streetlights, to bigger events, to practices from Chinese gangs and shamans, to a real article about the queer community that gets quoted in the book. I wanted it to feel very very grounded. At the same time, I wanted to preserve the creative license to work in the realms of fiction and speculative fiction; I didn’t want to get too bogged down with incorporating every shred of fact. So I was constantly moderating my own relationship to accuracy. I had to keep reminding myself it needed to be a story first and a historical record much, much further down the list.
With this being your second novel, were there any key lessons you learned that helped with writing When They Burned the Butterfly?
Interestingly, while it’s my second novel published, a lot of it was developed concurrently with my first one, The Dark We Know. I wrote the first drafts for both books months apart, and then switched between editing them as they both got picked up. It was really the sheer scope of Butterfly that taught me an immeasurable amount about how to tackle a bigger story, especially one that’s more character-driven; now that I’m working on something new for the first time since those two first books, I’m really feeling the lessons kicking in. I’m really settling into who I am as a writer, I think.
What’s next for you?
I’m writing something else for the world of Butterfly, and it’s REALLY putting me through the ringer. For some reason it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever written. I’m looking forward to the day it all makes sense and I get to share it.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed reading this year? Are there any you’re looking forward to picking up?
I’ve been really hungry for literary and unconventional fantasy and I FINALLY picked up Simon Jimenez’s The Spear Cuts Through Water, which was just mesmerizing. I’ve been trying to read more in translation, too, and was recently struck by Kyung-sook Shin’s Violets, translated by Anton Hur. And as someone who really enjoys queer Gatsby retellings, I’m really looking forward to KM Fajardo’s Local Heavens.
