Left Bank Books & Taipei Cultural Center Present: Jenna Tang - Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise
Left Bank Books & Taipei Cultural Center (TCC) in New York present Jenna Tang. Tang is the translator for "Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise," one of the biggest books to come out of Taiwan in the last decade. Join us as Tang discusses the most influential book of Taiwan's #MeToo movement--a heartbreaking account of sexual violence and a remarkable reinvention of the trauma plot, turning the traditional "Lolita" narrative upside down as it explores women's vulnerability, victimization, and the lengths they will go to survive.
Tang will personalize and sign copies after the presentation! Personalized and signed copies will be available to be mailed anywhere in the country. For personalized copies, please order before noon on May 28th.
Tang will be in conversation with debut St. Louis author Kat Tang.
Join us at Left Bank Books on Wednesday, May 29, at 6pm.
399 N Euclid Ave
St. Louis, MO 63108
Please RSVP as space is limited: https://forms.gle/bfiNePQCutKV41ku9
Watch the livestream on Left Bank Books' YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/@LeftBankBooks/streams
Order the Book: https://www.left-bank.com/book/9780063319431
About the Speakers:
Lin Yi-Han (1991-2017) was a Taiwanese writer. "Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise" was her first and only novel. It sold over a million copies globally, won prizes, including the Open Book Best Fiction Award and the Liang Yu-Sen Literary Award, and became a feminist manifesto across Asia. Lin Yi-Han also wrote for "INK magazine" and "BuzzFeed."
Jenna Tang is a Taiwanese writer and a literary translator who translates between Chinese, French, Spanish, and English. She graduated from MFA in Fiction Creative Writing from The New School in New York City. Her translations and essays are published in "The Paris Review," "Restless Books," "Latin American Literature Today," "AAWW," "McSweeney’s," "Catapult," and elsewhere. Her interviews can be found at World Literature Today and Words Without Borders. She is currently based in Taiwan. She was 2021 Mentee at ALTA Emerging Translators Mentorship program with a focus on Taiwanese prose. She has translated Lin Yi-Han’s novel, "Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise," forthcoming at HarperVia in May 21st, 2024. To date, she has translated authors from Taiwan, México, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, and more.
Kat Tang is a graduate of Columbia’s MFA program where she taught as an Undergraduate Writing Fellow. Born in China, relocated to Japan, and raised in California, she is fascinated by how we make and fake human connection in a technologically evolving world. Her short stories and graphic narratives have appeared in "Electric Literature," "The Margins," "Pigeon Pages," and elsewhere. She currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
About "Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise":
The most influential book of Taiwan's #MeToo movement--a heartbreaking account of sexual violence and a remarkable reinvention of the trauma plot, turning the traditional "Lolita" narrative upside down as it explores women's vulnerability, victimization, and the lengths they will go to survive.
Thirteen-year-old Fang Si-Chi lives with her family in an upscale apartment complex in Taiwan, a tightknit community of strict yet doting parents and privileged children raised to be ambitious, dutiful, and virtuous. She and her neighbor Liu Yi-Ting bond over their love of learning and books, devouring classic works--Proust, Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez, the very best Chinese writers. Yet, it is their lack of real-world education that makes them true kindred spirits.
Si-Chi's innocence is irresistible to Lee Guo-hua, a revered cram literature teacher and serial predator who lives in her building. When he offers to tutor the academic-minded girls for free, their parents--unaware of Lee's true nature--happily accept. While Yi-Ting's studies with Lee are straightforward, Si-Chi learns about things no one teaches them in school--lessons about sex and love that will change the course of her life. Confused and uncertain, Si-Chi turns to her beloved books for guidance. But literature tells her nothing honest about rape or how to cope with the trauma of abuse. For her own salvation, the young girl begins to think of her personal hell as her "first love paradise," where the power of love, no matter how twisted, gives her the strength to survive.
One of the biggest books to come out of Taiwan in the last decade, "Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise" is a chilling tale of grooming and its lingering trauma, and the power structures that allow it to flourish. Insightful, unsettling, emotionally raw, it is a staggering work of literature that reverberates across cultures and forces us to confront painful truths about the vulnerability and strength of women and those who use and hurt them.
Translated from the Chinese by Jenna Tang.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2407293-0
