Taiwan Travelogue Wins International Booker Prize, First Mandarin Chinese Translation

The International Booker Prize has been awarded to “Taiwan Travelogue,” a novel exploring forbidden love and Taiwanese cuisine, marking the first time a work translated from Mandarin Chinese has won the prestigious award.

Written by Taiwanese author Yang Shuang-zi and translated by Taiwanese-American Lin King, the book follows two women on a culinary tour of Taiwan in the 1930s, when the island was under Japanese rule.

The novel is framed as a translation of a rediscovered travel memoir, complete with fictional footnotes, leading many readers to believe it was a genuine historical text when first published in 2020.

“It’s a captivating, slyly sophisticated novel,” said Natasha Brown, chair of the judging panel.

The story centers on fictional Japanese writer Aoyama Chizuko, who falls in love with her Taiwanese translator, O Chizuru, during a government-sponsored tour of Taiwan.

Through the women’s perspectives, the novel examines themes of love, culture, colonial history and power.

“Research for the novel’s central themes of travel and food changed my life in two obvious ways,” Yang told the Booker Prize before her win was announced. “My savings went down; my weight went up.”

“Taiwan Travelogue” had already won several accolades prior to the Booker.

Yang, 41, also writes essays, manga and video game scripts. Her original Mandarin Chinese version won Taiwan’s highest literary honor, the Golden Tripod Award, in 2021.

Lin King’s English translation won the National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2024.

Speaking before the win, King said she appreciated the balance the novel struck between the sorrow and joys of Taiwanese people under Japanese control.

“No matter how difficult times are, I believe that humans always manage to find flickers of levity and deep wells of love,” she said.

“There was still humour, good food, movies, school, petty fights, and romance. To suggest otherwise is to reduce a culture to its trauma,” she said.

In awarding the prize, the judges noted in a statement the “vital work of translation,” adding that the £50,000 ($67,000) prize money would be split equally between author and translator.