Review: Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang

I really love the front cover design for Taipei Story though I’ll say the typeface used is a bit plain. The jacket design is by Ploy Siripant. Jacket and digital edge illustrations by Whooli Chen/Central Illustration Agency. But their Chinese was no better and no worse than mine. I had also used the Integrated Chinese textbook. I, too, knew Wang Peng. We were on the same itinerary so that we could fill in the same gaping lack, and the only thing that would resolve this was the passage of time—ten weeks in Taipei, immersed in our mother tongue—until we returned with perfect tones spilling out of our mouths, and we were no longer so bad at being Chinese. page 3 Table of ContentsWhy Taipei Story?The BookLanguageGriefColonialism and GeopoliticsConcluding Thoughts Why Taipei Story? Regular readers of my blog will know that I have a bit of a fondness for the works of R. F. Kuang. You could say I am a fan, a fanboy even. I read Babel in 2024 and fell in love with her writing, That book was…