Arkady Martine

AnnaLinden Weller (born April 19, 1985), better known under the pen name Arkady Martine, is an American author of science fiction literature. Her first novels, A Memory Called Empire (2019) and A Desolation Called Peace (2021), each won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, making her one of only a handful of authors to achieve back-to-back Hugo wins - a remarkable feat for any writer, let alone a debut novelist.

Arkady Martine is a speculative fiction writer and, as Dr. AnnaLinden Weller, a historian of the Byzantine Empire and a city planner. Under both names she writes about border politics, rhetoric, propaganda, and the edges of the world. She currently works as the New Mexico Senior Policy Advisor for Clean Energy at Western Resource Advocates, an environmental and clean energy nonprofit, where she specializes in utility regulation and legislative advocacy for energy grid modernization, climate change mitigation, and resiliency planning.

Martine said that A Memory Called Empire was in many respects a fictional version of her postdoctoral research about Byzantine imperialism on the frontier with Armenia in the 11th century, particularly the annexation of the Kingdom of Ani. This unique blend of historical expertise and speculative fiction creates rich diplomatic space opera that tackles complex themes of cultural assimilation, identity preservation, and the seductive nature of empires. Her academic background in studying Byzantine diplomats on frontiers directly informs her portrayal of ambassadors navigating alien cultures while maintaining their own identities.

On The Verge website, Andrew Liptak praised the novel as a "brilliant blend of cyberpunk, space opera, and political thriller", while Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews magazines both gave starred reviews, comparing Martine's work to Ann Leckie and Yoon Ha Lee. Her latest novella, Rose/House, was nominated for the 2024 Hugo for Best Novella and won China's 2024 Fishing Fortress Science Fiction Award for Best International Novella.

Arkady grew up in New York City, and after some time in Turkey, Canada, Sweden, and Baltimore, lives in New Mexico with her wife, the author Vivian Shaw. Her dedication in A Memory Called Empire reads: "This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever fallen in love with a culture that was devouring their own" - encapsulating the central tension of her work exploring colonialism, cultural imperialism, and the complicated relationship between colonizer and colonized.