Taipei Story (Deluxe Limited Edition).jpg
Taipei Story (Deluxe Limited Edition).jpg

Taipei Story (Deluxe Limited Edition): A Novel by R. F. Kuang

from $12.80
Hardcover:

An instant New York Times ​​​​​​bestseller!

This limited deluxe hardcover features gorgeous stenciled edges – available on the first printing only!

From R.F. Kuang, the acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author of Katabasis and Yellowface, comes a wryly humorous and profoundly moving coming-of-age novel that grapples with grief, language, and culture shock—all set against the backdrop of an unforgettable summer in Taipei.

College freshman Lily Chen is off to spend the summer in Taipei at an intensive language program like so many Chinese American students before her, hoping to connect with the culture she inherited but never fully understood. But a promising start quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate is driving her insane, and a reckless trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon has her classmates viciously gossiping. She feels adrift, a foreigner in a country she thought would feel like home.

Then shocking news arrives: Lily's grandfather has passed away. The loss forces her to grapple with now-unanswerable questions about her family history. As Lily grieves, she's drawn into a journey of self-discovery—piecing together memories, stories, and silences over a series of hilarious and devastating attempts at connection.

Taipei Story asks: What if the diaspora fantasy of homecoming never comes true? What if learning a language can't bring you any closer to the people you're trying to reach? What if you search for your family's history, but your family doesn't want to share? What if you wait too long to ask the right questions? As Lily struggles for answers, her summer becomes a poignant search for understanding—of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.

An instant New York Times ​​​​​​bestseller!

This limited deluxe hardcover features gorgeous stenciled edges – available on the first printing only!

From R.F. Kuang, the acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author of Katabasis and Yellowface, comes a wryly humorous and profoundly moving coming-of-age novel that grapples with grief, language, and culture shock—all set against the backdrop of an unforgettable summer in Taipei.

College freshman Lily Chen is off to spend the summer in Taipei at an intensive language program like so many Chinese American students before her, hoping to connect with the culture she inherited but never fully understood. But a promising start quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate is driving her insane, and a reckless trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon has her classmates viciously gossiping. She feels adrift, a foreigner in a country she thought would feel like home.

Then shocking news arrives: Lily's grandfather has passed away. The loss forces her to grapple with now-unanswerable questions about her family history. As Lily grieves, she's drawn into a journey of self-discovery—piecing together memories, stories, and silences over a series of hilarious and devastating attempts at connection.

Taipei Story asks: What if the diaspora fantasy of homecoming never comes true? What if learning a language can't bring you any closer to the people you're trying to reach? What if you search for your family's history, but your family doesn't want to share? What if you wait too long to ask the right questions? As Lily struggles for answers, her summer becomes a poignant search for understanding—of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.

  • Publisher: William Morrow

    Title: Taipei Story (Deluxe Limited Edition): A Novel

    Author: R. F. Kuang

    On Sale Date: September 8, 2026

    ISBN 13: 978-0-06-347374-4

    ISBN 10: 0-06-347374-7

    Format: Hardcover (Deluxe Limited Edition)

    Retail Price: $32.00

    Page Count: 288

    Dimensions: 9.0 x 6.0 x 0.9 in

    Weight: 15.6 oz

  • R. F. Kuang built her reputation writing about big, brutal historical machinery—colonialism, language, and empire—in The Poppy War trilogy and Babel: An Arcane History, then turned that same unsparing eye on the publishing industry itself in the #1 New York Times bestseller Yellowface. A Marshall Scholar with graduate degrees in Chinese studies from Cambridge and Oxford, and a doctoral candidate in East Asian languages and literatures at Yale, Kuang writes fiction that's as intellectually rigorous as it is page-turning. Taipei Story is her most intimate book yet: a coming-of-age novel about a Chinese American college student's language-immersion summer in Taipei, written with the same eye for cultural contradiction that has made Kuang one of her generation's most-read novelists.

  • Critics are calling it sophisticated, sharp, and moving:

    • "Kuang's most muted offering to date, and her most sophisticated by a mile." — Lauren Christensen, The New York Times Book Review

    • "I enjoyed Taipei Story a lot. Kuang's observations of the shifting power relationships among 20-year-old friends ring sharp and true." — Laura Miller, Slate

    • "A visceral exploration of language as a bridge and a barrier." — Kirkus Reviews

    • "Quiet, moving and thought-provoking...an examination of how the stories we inherit shape who we are." — BookPage

This book is for you if

  • You loved the sharp social observation of Yellowface and want to see R.F. Kuang turn that same eye on something quieter and more personal.

  • You're drawn to diaspora stories about a language program that's supposed to reconnect you to your roots—and doesn't go as planned.

  • You want a coming-of-age novel that's genuinely funny about awkward twenty-year-old friendships and genuinely devastating about grief in the same chapter.

  • You're interested in what happens when a grandparent's death leaves behind more unanswered questions than answers.

  • You want this as a collectible: a deluxe limited hardcover edition of one of the most anticipated literary novels of the year.

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