Taiwan Travelogue by Taiwanese author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated into English by Lin King, won the 2026 International Booker Prize. The winner was announced May 19, 2026, at Tate Modern, London. The novel is framed as a translation of a rediscovered manuscript by a Japanese writer traveling through Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule in the 1930s. At its center is a love story between two women, set against questions of empire, identity, and what gets lost—or altered—in translation. It was the first book by a Taiwanese author to win the prize. The book was originally published in Mandarin in 2020. Yáng is also the winner of the 2021 Golden Tripod Award, one of Taiwan’s most prestigious literary honors. She is a writer of fiction and pop culture criticism. King, who holds both Taiwanese and U.S. citizenship, won the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers in 2018. Her 2024 translation of Taiwan Travelogue also won the U.S. National Book Award for Translated Literature.
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