M. J. Engh

M. J. Engh (1933-2024) was an American science fiction writer, librarian, and independent scholar of Roman history who published under her initials and, early on, the pseudonym Jane Beauclerk; she was born Mary Jane Gholson. Her best-known novel, Arslan (1976), imagines a small-time Turkistani warlord who conquers the world and settles in a small Illinois town, using the intimacy of small-town life to probe complicity and power; critic Algis Budrys called it a genuine work of speculative political science. She followed it with Wheel of the Winds (1988), about human explorers meeting a humanoid alien species, and Rainbow Man (1993), which examines gender roles on an alien world and was a James Tiptree Jr. Award longlist title and Prometheus Award nominee. In 2009 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named her an Author Emerita.