41-year-old Taiwanese author Yang Shuang-zi has become the first writer from Taiwan to win the International Booker Prize, with her novel Taiwan Travelogue taking the prestigious award at a ceremony in London.
The novel is also the first book translated from Chinese to win the prize, marking a milestone for Taiwanese literature.
Yang accepted the award alongside translator Lin King at Tate Modern on Tuesday night (May 19).
In her acceptance speech, Yang said literature could not be separated from politics or the society in which it was created. She said Taiwanese people had lived through colonial rule and ongoing geopolitical threats for more than a century, adding that the novel reflected Taiwan’s continuing search for its future identity.
She dedicated the award to Taiwan and said she was proud to stand on stage as a Taiwanese writer.
Lin said she intentionally resisted simplifying Taiwan’s multilingual and multicultural reality for English-language readers, hoping to preserve the island’s diverse voices.
The novel was among six shortlisted titles for this year’s International Booker Prize, and marked the first time a Taiwanese work had reached the final list. The £50,000 (HK$500,000) prize money will be shared equally between the author and translator.
Taiwan Travelogue is presented as a “pseudo-translation,” framed as a Japanese-language travel memoir supposedly written by fictional Japanese author Aoyama Chizuko after touring Taiwan in 1938 during the Japanese colonial era. The book is then fictionally presented as having been translated into Chinese by Yang.
The novel follows Aoyama as she travels across Taiwan on a government-sponsored tour accompanied by Taiwanese translator O Chizuru. As the two women grow closer and gradually fall in love, the story explores themes of love, culture, colonial history and power.
Originally published in 2020, Taiwan Travelogue has since sold translation rights in 24 countries.
