Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, pulled off an ‘incredible double feat’ in succeeding as ‘both a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel’
(19 May 2026) Taiwan Travelogue, a novel written by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated by Lin King, has become the first book originally written in Mandarin Chinese to win the International Booker prize.
Yáng and King were announced as the winners of the £50,000 prize – to be split equally between them – during a ceremony at Tate Modern, London, on Tuesday evening.
The novel is presented as a translation of a rediscovered memoir, written from the perspective of a novelist who sails to Japan-occupied Taiwan in 1938 and embarks on a culinary tour in the company of an interpreter, with whom she falls in love. The book features fictional footnotes and afterwords by the book’s characters as well as “real” ones by King, which “wrap an intriguing metafictional layer around its core love story”, said judging chair and novelist Natasha Brown.
Yáng and King are the first Taiwanese and Taiwanese-American winners of the prize, which recognises the best fiction translated into English. The original Mandarin Chinese publication won Taiwan’s highest literary honour, the Golden Tripod award, and King’s English translation won the US National book award for translated literature in 2024.
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