'Taiwan Travelogue' wins the 2026 International Booker Prize

A fictional rediscovered travel memoir set in 1930s Japanese-occupied Taiwan follows two main characters on a culinary tour across the island. The novel won the 2026 International Booker Prize for fiction translated into English, marking the first Mandarin Chinese work to receive the award. Yang Shuang-zi and translator Lin King became the first Taiwanese and Taiwanese-American winners. Judges praised the book as captivating and slyly sophisticated, succeeding as both romance and incisive postcolonial fiction. The story is framed by a comparative perspective on Japanese colonial legacies in Taiwan and Korea, emphasizing Taiwan’s mix of distaste and nostalgia. The translation also emphasizes humor, food, everyday life, and queer romance during difficult historical periods.

"“Taiwan Travelogue pulls off an incredible double feat,” wrote Natasha Brown, chair of judges, said in a press release. “It succeeds as both a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel.” Judges describe Taiwan Travelogue, which won the 2024 National Book Award for translated literature, as a “captivating, slyly sophisticated” book. The novel presents as a rediscovered (and fictional) travel memoir from 1930s Japan-occupied Taiwan, as its two main characters embark together on a culinary tour across Taiwan."

"Yang conceived the novel with a comparative perspective in mind: “Both Korea and Taiwan were once colonies of the Japanese Empire, but Koreans seem to feel uniformly resentful of that history, whereas Taiwanese people regard it with a much more conflicted mix of distaste and nostalgia,” she said in an interview with the Booker Prize Foundation. “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.”"

"In the same interview, Taiwan Travelogue's translator Lin King said she “personally dislike[s] historical fiction that is strictly miserable.” Taiwan Travelogue, she said, reflects the breadth of “humour, good food, movies, school, petty fights, and romance” that remains during difficult periods in history. And as a queer historical romance, the novel also functions as a window into a largely-hidden past one where, as King said, characters' identities and experiences are not"

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