North Texas-raised author Rebecca F. Kuang has a new book on the way.
Taipei Story, the eighth novel from the bestselling author who writes under the name R.F. Kuang, comes out on Sept. 8. Kuang, who was born in China and moved to the Dallas area at 5 years old, spoke about her upbringing and the upcoming novel in a recent interview with Texas Monthly.
Kuang, 30, described early experiences in Texas as dazzling, recounting her youth spending time in the woods and the duck pond until sunset.
“That was my first experience of America, of figuring out what it meant to be an immigrant and a part of a new place,” Kuang said. “My dad loved participating in everything Texan. We went to barbecues. We were excited to celebrate the Fourth of July and learn all the lore about the Lone Star State. I thought all of America was like Texas.”
She also spoke about joining the debate team at Flower Mound High School, an extracurricular she continued at The Greenhill School in Addison.
“That was my entire high school experience, traveling for debate tournaments,” she said. “It’s the closest you can get to being a football player without being athletically talented in any way.”
She later added that her debate prep experience from high school helped her when researching for literary projects. She offered an example of research on the Franco-Prussian War for an in-progress fantasy novel set during the conflict.
“I’m reading army maps from the late 19th century and memoirs from soldiers and learning about innovations in artillery. This is totally useless knowledge that I’m never going to have to pull out at any other point in my life,” Kuang said. “I think certainly that’s a skill set that comes from debate.”
She also looked ahead to Taipei Story, a coming-of-age tale led by a college-age protagonist that represents a departure from her past bestsellers like Yellowface, Babel and The Poppy War series.
“A lot of my novels are so action driven, all big explosions and plot twists. I wanted to try something that captures the everyday reality of what it’s like to be a rising sophomore, confused by everything you encounter and not knowing who you want to be and how to interact with anybody around you,” she said. “It’s a more fine-tuned, perceptive and observational style of writing. As a younger writer, I didn’t have the patience for it.”
Taipei Story is available for pre-order online at major retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org.