Jenna Tang’s new translation of Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise, by Lin Yi-Han (Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith, May 31, 2024)
The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith focuses on stories of migration, the intersection of politics and literature, and works in translation. Join us this Friday May 31, 2024 for an in-store event with translator Jenna Tang to discuss and celebrate the release of Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise by Lin Yi-Han. She will be in conversation with writer Grace Talusan. One of the biggest books to come out of Taiwan in the last decade and a #MeToo feminist manifesto across Asia, the novel is a chilling tale of grooming and trauma and the power structures that allow it to flourish. Insightful and unsettling, it is a staggering work of literature that reverberates across cultures and forces us to confront painful truths.
Friday, May 31st at 7:00 PM at Brookline Booksmith
279 Harvard Street, Brookline, MA 02446 Tel. (617) 566-6660
For more information and to rsvp, visit: https://tls-firstloveparadise.eventbrite.com
This event is free to attend. If you don’t want to click on the links you can also find registration information on Brookline Booksmith’s website .
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About the book (from https://www.harpercollins.com/products/fang-si-chis-first-love-paradise-yi-han-lin?variant=41107206144034):
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
About the translator, Jenna Tang https://www.jennatang.com/:
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.
She is available for works including: medical and court interpretation (Chinese, Spanish, French to English), literary translation samples, subtitle translations, research projects, sensitivity reading, copyediting (Chinese & English), reader’s reports, teaching workshops, lectures, panels, proofreading, translators’ mentorship, and event coordination.