Synopsis:

In Five Poems Lake, a small village surrounded by impenetrable deserts, the sun is slowly disappearing overhead. A young woman keeps one apprehensive eye on the sky above as she tends the pharmacy of traditional medicine that belonged to her great grandfather. She has few customers, and even fewer visitors: her older sister Dong Ji, her last living relative, works at a wellness parlor across town for those who can afford it–which, during these strange and difficult days, is not many.

Five Poems Lake had fallen on hard times long before the sun began shrinking, but now, every few days, a new sliver disappears. As the temperature drops and the lake freezes over, the population of the town realizes that they will soon die–if not of the cold and starvation, then of despair. When the Beacons begin to appear–ordinary people with heads replaced by searing, blinding light, like miniature suns–the town’s residents wonder if they may hold the answer to their salvation, or if they are just another sign of impending ruin. A photograph belonging to their father, who died mysteriously twelve years ago, may offer a clue in the mystery of the Beacons, and Dong Ji and her sister wonder if they may finally learn what happened to their father.

Genre: Literary/Magical Realism
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Pub Date: 05 August 2025

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Review:

In Five Poems Lake, the sun is disappearing. Surrounded by desert, the community that live there are forced to adapt to a darker, colder and more barren world. Before the sun vanishes completely, Beacons appear – regular townsfolk whose heads are engulfed in their own miniature suns. Are the Beacons salvation, or are they the heralds of the end? Our unnamed narrator quietly watches this unfold from her family’s pharmacy, while her sister works at a wellness spa across town.

This was a haunting, surreal and beautifully written novel. The whole thing felt incredibly dreamlike, the otherworldly elements of the story blending so perfectly into the mundane everyday life of the town.

The surreal elements aren’t the heart of this story, however. There are a lot of themes underlying the plot, namely grief, the complexity of familial relationships and the desire for understanding. It’s philosophical and filled with questions.

This book will not give you the answer you want. It will not tell you why the events happen. There’s no hero, no person coming up with a solution to the problems. Instead, this novel simply shows you what. What happens to the Beacons. What the townsfolk are doing to adapt to the changes each time they lose a piece of the sun. It is an incredibly human novel, a reflection on how we try to survive, to understand and cope with what we are faced with.

This is a novel that I think many people will take many different things from. It’s compelling and incredibly thought provoking.

Congratulations to An Yu for making it onto the shortlist of the 2026 Climate Fiction Prize.