Taipei Story

First love. Second language. Final goodbyes.

For Lily, mastering Chinese means connection:

To her family

Her heritage

To herself

But what if waiting for perfection means it's too late to get the answers she wants most?

The electrifying new novel from the literary phenomenon.

Yale student Lily Chen arrives in Taipei hungry: for family, for culture, for connection.

But her summer of discovery quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate unbearable, and a reckless, deeply awkward trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon ignites vicious gossip.

Then her grandfather dies.

Grieving and adrift, Lily must confront her own questions about the culture she inherited but never fully understood. She embarks on a wryly funny, often devastating search for understanding: of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.

All over one unforgettable summer in Taipei.

Review

‘Kuang is sharply attuned to current mores, but prefers satire to lecturing – reminiscent, in this respect, of her fellow American writers Kiley Reid and Curtis Sittenfeld, who have also written wonderful campus novels. I loved this idiosyncratic coming-of-age story’ THE SPECTATOR

‘For fans of Sally Rooney and Coco Mellors’ COUNTRY & TOWN HOUSE

‘A sophisticated coming-of-age story’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘A timely, deeply moving novel’ GUARDIAN

‘Masterful and intelligent’ BBC RADIO 4 FRONT ROW

‘A sharp look at second-generation immigration experience’ GRAZIA

‘Wryly funny, often devastating’ SHEERLUXE

‘There is a wildness and freedom to her work that is extraordinary. Her characters are complex and human; nothing feels contrived’ TIME MAGAZINE

About the Author

R.F Kuang is the author of The Poppy War Trilogy, Babel: An Arcane History, and Yellowface. Her work has won the Nebula, Locus, and British Book Awards. She is pursuing a PhD in East Asian Language and Literature at Yale.