Taiwan Travelogue Wins International Booker Prize
Taiwan Travelogue, a novel by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ 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—split equally between them—during a ceremony held at Tate Modern in London on Tuesday evening.
About the Novel
The novel is framed as a translation of a rediscovered memoir, narrated from the perspective of a novelist who sails to Japan-occupied Taiwan in 1938. The protagonist embarks on a culinary tour accompanied by an interpreter, with whom she develops a romantic relationship. The book incorporates fictional footnotes and afterwords authored by the characters, alongside "real" ones by King, which add a metafictional dimension to the central love story, according to judging chair and novelist Natasha Brown.
This marks the second consecutive year that the Sheffield-based independent press And Other Stories has won the prize, following last year's victory with Blue Ticket by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi.
Critical Acclaim
Natasha Brown praised Taiwan Travelogue for accomplishing an "incredible double feat," succeeding as "both a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel."
Yáng and King are the first Taiwanese and Taiwanese-American recipients of the prize, which honors the best fiction translated into English. The original Mandarin edition received Taiwan's highest literary accolade, the Golden Tripod award, while King's English translation won the US National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2024.
Authors' Backgrounds
In addition to fiction, Yáng writes essays, manga, and video game scripts. King is also an original fiction writer, with her debut novel, Weeb, forthcoming.
In a March interview on the International Booker Prize website, Yáng explained her motivation for writing:
"My middle school classmates decided to form a writing group together, though of the five of us, I’m the only one who kept writing," she said, attributing her start to the mid-90s boom in Taiwanese romance novels.
Regarding the inspiration behind Taiwan Travelogue, Yáng stated:
"While both Korea and Taiwan were once colonies of the Japanese empire, Koreans seem to feel uniformly resentful of that history, whereas Taiwanese people regard it with a much more conflicted mix of distaste and nostalgia. Using a contemporary Taiwanese lens, I wanted to untangle the complex circumstances that Taiwan’s people faced in the past, and to explore what kind of future we ought to strive toward."
Competition and Judging Panel
Taiwan Travelogue was selected over several other shortlisted works, including Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin; The Witch by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump; She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated by Izidora Angel; On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated by Padma Viswanathan; and The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar, translated by Ruth Martin.
The judging panel consisted of Natasha Brown, mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, translator Sophie Hughes, and writers Troy Onyango and Nilanjana S Roy. The 2026 prize was open to long-form fiction and short-story collections translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 May 2025 and 30 April 2026.
Previous Winners
Past recipients of the International Booker Prize include Han Kang for The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith, and Olga Tokarczuk for Flights, translated by Jennifer Croft.
For a full list of shortlisted titles for the 2026 International Booker Prize, visit the official website. Delivery charges may apply.
