Language lessons: Taipei Story, by Rebecca Kuang, reviewed

05 Sep 2026

issue 05 September 2026

Comments

Rebecca Kuang was quietly writing cult classics for years before she hit the best-seller lists with Babel, a Victorian fantasy based on colonialism and opium wars, and Yellowface, a deliciously dark story about literary plagiarism and the ego-smashing right hook that social media can administer. Then came Katabasis, skewering academia and the exploitation of naive students.

The breadth of Kuang’s knowledge reflects her high-achieving CV, which takes in Cambridge, Oxford and Yale. Taipei Story explores her identity as a Chinese- American. It relates the experience of Lily, a Yale student attending an intensive summer course in Chinese language and culture in Taipei. Taiwan is easier to visit than mainland China, and Lily hopes to become fluent in Mandarin and able to converse with her maternal grandparents.