R.F. Kuang on Writing Her Latest Novel, "Taipei Story," Reclaiming Language, & Finding Home

About this episode

R.F. Kuang joins Brian for an intimate conversation about Taipei Story , her shortest and perhaps most personal novel yet. She shares how the death of her grandfather and a disorienting summer in Taipei first inspired a collection of private notes, written during a period when grief had left her feeling incapable of writing, and how those fragments eventually became Lily Chen’s story. Rebecca discusses writing an intelligent but imperfect Gen Z protagonist without condescension, the shame that can surround losing a heritage language, and why language is not something inherited through blood, but a connection that can be rebuilt. She and Brian also explore the ways different languages shape…