Sophie's World [Paperback]

◎ First published in 2017, it immediately sold out. This classic illustrated essay collection, with its incredibly high demand, is making a brand new appearance in 2025 as a bunkobon edition!
　　◎ The entire book has been revised by the author, with two new additions: "Reprint Preface: Mellow" and "Postscript to the Reprint: Otium et Bellum."

　　We are all searching for ourselves through collisions.

　　Writer Hsiao Yi-hui ╳ Erotic Illustrator Phoebe
　　Their most genuine and raw confessions,
　　Eighty-six tugs and pulls, throwing out countless daily anxieties.
　　Colliding with the world, with each other, with the past and future, and with oneself.
　　Each time drawing closer to the present, closer to the essence of life.

　　"Do you know about the Sufi whirl? You just spin, standing on one foot with your eyes open, spinning continuously, and then you suddenly feel like you are the center. They say that's how you know God, because when you spin, everything moves away from you, closer to nothingness than anything else." —〈Seeking〉

　　When spinning, everything leaves, moving closer to nothingness, closer to oneself.

　　The illustrated essay collection "Sufi Whirling" consists of eighty-six pieces, divided into three sections named after planets: Theia, Troy, and Selene. It is a collaboration between writer Hsiao Yi-hui and illustrator Phoebe, with each piece of text paired with an illustration. The subtle and natural text and the vibrant and intense illustrations pull and collide with each other, like small celestial bodies in the universe spinning and orbiting. Centrifugal and centripetal forces occur simultaneously, raising contemporary questions about loneliness, self, time, freedom, and desire. Through this exchange of strongly opposing worldviews—beauty and ugliness, dirt and cleanliness, right and wrong, repetition and uniqueness, staying or leaving—these losses become catalysts for change, colliding into fragments in the stellar zone, which then can be reassembled to form a better self.

　　Facing the world, they repeatedly and mutually depict the struggles and losses of life, so genuine, so raw.

　　From boy to man, he is meticulous in thought, whispering words, with multiple interweavings and fusions of language and text. He confesses without reservation yet with a touch of awkwardness, feeling wistful about small everyday matters. He writes about theories and legends heard by chance, bizarre news events, overturned fairy tales, slang from learning new languages, subtle romantic desires, popular science research, or extensions of obscure knowledge. Through the superficial appearance of ordinary life, he poses questions about life, attempting to overturn the laws of time and things, approaching the present from the future and the past.

　　From girl to woman, she explores desires and liberates the body. Her artworks often originate from a female perspective, expressing desires and emotions directly with wild lines and vibrant colors, often with playful details. She portrays various "pink postures" of women, gently debating with the text or resonating with shared life experiences across different times and spaces. She attempts to break gender frameworks and construct a "pink paradise" where all unique individuals can coexist freely, allowing the disguise of shyness to shed and reveal a more dazzling and beautiful self.

　　Meeting, colliding, then parting, eventually entering the next cycle of personal life.

　　"But I don't want to change your orbit, knowing that it's the path you need for your daily rotations. Optimistically, if we're far enough apart, you won't notice that you're still drifting away, right? By then, it won't matter which side of you looks at me. Leave well. Don't think about reunion." —〈Facing〉