Sunbirth cover art

Sunbirth

Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Sunbirth

By: An Yu
Narrated by: Mei Mei MacLeod
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Since her father’s death twelve years previously, our unnamed narrator, a pharmacist, has been living with her older sister Dong Ji in Five Poems Lake on the edge of the desert. The sun over their isolated town has begun to disappear in crescents, like a gibbous moon. These increments are reported on the evening news, while the temperature drops, the lake freezes over, and the trees start to die. One night, as the narrator returns from visiting a friend in hospital, she is accosted by a man who tries to assault her – but who transforms before her eyes into a Beacon, with a searing, blinding light where his head used to be. A few nights later more Beacons are caught on film. Where do they come from? What has caused them? Do they have something to do with the vanishing of the sun? An Yu explores questions of mortality, desire and longing in this hugely atmospheric and beautiful novel, while diving deep into the relationship between the two sisters – their love for each other, the weight of responsibility and dependency, and their desire to be free.

©2025 An Yu (P)2025 Penguin Audio
Dystopian Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction
No reviews yet