Marie Lu

Chinese-American author of the Legend trilogy and other young adult dystopian series, known for fast-paced plotting and richly imagined future worlds.

Marie Lu is a Chinese-American author and former video game art director whose transition to young adult fiction produced one of the most successful dystopian series of the post-Hunger Games era. Her debut novel Legend, published in 2011, introduces a future North America divided into a military republic and a rebel colonies, and follows two teenagers — Day, the republic’s most wanted criminal, and June, its most brilliant military prodigy — whose lives collide in ways neither expected.

Lu’s background in visual storytelling informs her fiction: her worlds are vividly rendered and cinematically paced, with action sequences that move with the propulsive energy of a well-designed game. Legend operates on the familiar YA framework of oppressive authority challenged by gifted young protagonists, but Lu distinguishes her work through the genuine warmth of her central relationship and the moral complexity she allows her antagonists. The republic is not simply evil; its soldiers believe in what they’re fighting for.

Beyond Legend, Lu has written the Young Elites trilogy (a fantasy about a young woman gaining powers from a plague), the Warcross duology (a cyberpunk story set around a VR gaming tournament), and the Skyhunter series. She is one of the most consistently productive authors in YA fiction and has maintained an unusually high standard across multiple series and genres. For young readers who loved The Hunger Games and want more of the same intensity and world-building craft, Lu’s Legend trilogy is the natural next step.