Illumicrate
Contemporary
Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang (Illumicrate Exclusive)
$36.00
About the product
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.
Our Illumicrate Exclusive edition is a Royal hardback and features:
- An exclusive redesigned cover (art by @jasonchaungart; design by @_anniearnold)
- Full colour art and foil on the hardback (art by @whooli.chen)
- Digitally printed fore-edge (by @jasonchaungart); block-sprayed top and bottom
- Endpaper artwork; different front and back (by @hsiaoroncheng)
- Hand signed by the author
Please note, this is a digital mock-up and finished copies may differ slightly.
Limited to one per person.
About the Author
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What is Illumicrate?
Illumicrate started life as a quarterly subscription box, and we're proud that we were the first UK book subscription box! We launched in the summer of 2015, and our very first box was November 2015. We now offer two options for the Illumicrate monthly subscriptions: a full box subscription and a book only subscription, which features the books included in our monthly boxes.
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