Cover image for Taipei Story - Rebecca F Kuang

Taipei Story

By Rebecca F Kuang
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TAIPEI STORY is the electrifying new novel by bestselling literary phenomenon Rebecca F. Kuang, a profoundly moving coming-of-age story that explores first love, second language and final goodbyes – all set against the backdrop of one unforgettable summer in Taipei.

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.

‘Like any great artist, she’s not preoccupied with external perception. There is a wildness and freedom to her work that is extraordinary. Her characters are complex and human; nothing feels contrived’ TIME MAGAZINE

Author: Rebecca F Kuang
Format: ebook
Release Date: 08 Sep 2026
ISBN: 978-0-00-870257-1

Rebecca F. Kuang is the #1New York Timesand #1Sunday Timesbestselling author ofKatabasis,Yellowface,Babel: An Arcane Historyand the Poppy War trilogy. Her work has won the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, and British Book Awards. A Marshall Scholar, she has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford. She is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale, where she studies diaspora, contemporary Sinophone literature, and Asian American literature.

Praise for YELLOWFACE: -

‘Propulsive’ SUNDAY TIMES -

‘Razor-sharp’ TIME -

‘Strikingly topical’ GUARDIAN -

‘Scathing, spiky, and full of laugh-out-loud moments’ GLAMOUR -

‘A clever, pacy tale’ SARA PASCOE -

'A riot' PANDORA SYKES -

‘Uncomfortable and addictive… a must-read’ INDEPENDENT -

'I guarantee it will stay with you' AFUA HIRSCH -

'Tense, modern… a brilliant exploration of the literary world' AISLING BEA -

Praise for KATABASIS: -

'Katabasis is a celebration of “the acrobatics of thought”. A tale of poets and storytellers, thinkers and theorists, art-makers and cultural sorcerers. This is a novel that believes in ideas – just not the cages we build for them' GUARDIAN -

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