Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise

A Novel

Yi-Han Lin, Jenna Tang

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English

HARPER360
01 September 2024

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Fiction: special features

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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 García 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

Sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan)

By: Yi-Han Lin
Translated by: Jenna Tang
Imprint: HARPER360
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 211mm, Width: 141mm, Spine: 17mm
Weight: 241g
ISBN: 9780063412811
ISBN 10: 0063412810
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 01 September 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

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.