SenLinYu’s debut started life as Harry Potter fanfiction. The Alchemised author shares why they were drawn to a war-torn love story, how a conservative upbringing shaped their writing, and the snobbery around fanfiction
In recent days, bookish pockets of TikTok and Instagram have been talking about one thing only. “I’ve been looking forward to this day more than I look forward to my wedding day,” says one creator, holding up to the camera a copy of the 1,040-page novel that was Penguin’s most pre-ordered debut of the year and has already netted a potentially record-breaking seven-figure film rights deal.
How does a first-time novelist get out of the starting blocks quite like that? The thing is, the author behind the doorstopper dark fantasy novel, Alchemised, is no unknown debut: SenLinYu, 34, started off writing Harry Potter fanfiction that blew up online during the pandemic, racking up more than 20m downloads. Her Draco and Hermione (“Dramione”) fanfic, heavily inspired by The Handmaid’s Tale, has now been rewritten – with third-party IP necessarily removed – and published traditionally as Alchemised. But if you didn’t know about Alchemised’s origins, you would be unlikely to clock them: even squinting, it’s hard to see any trace of Harry Potter in the revamped version, set in a different world and magic system.
