Over 15,000 copies sold since publication

Human Nature consists of twenty-five real life tragicomedies that have attracted attention outside of Taiwan’s courtrooms. A man in a dispute with his family over the division of a property, a vendor in a street fight, a lonely woman catfished online, a scorned mistress… These may not be complicated cases, but they tell us a lot about love, hate, the wounds that we inflict on each other, our cruelty and our potential for warmth. Often working without payment, Lu Chiu-Yuan is a self-styled lawyer of the people, a crusader for justice and better understanding of the law among the general population.

Having previously worked in finance, Lu Chiu-Yuan qualified as a lawyer only six years ago and has gone on to teach the subject at university. It was when he started sharing his stories on Facebook, however, that he realised the real significance of his new job. He began to ask questions about the nature of punishment, the law’s role in justice and reconciliation, and the place emotion can play in a lawyer’s work. The result is Human Nature, a moving account of the everyday disputes which make up the bulk of the work in Taiwan’s courts. ‘True crime’ as a genre often centers on the most sensational stories, the trials of serial killers or large-scale corruption. But there are more profound lessons to be found in these pages; this is the key to our ‘true heart’.