Taiwan Travelogue

Winner of the 2026 International Booker Prize

Winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature

Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, Taiwan Travelogue is a bittersweet story of love between two women, nested in an artful exploration of language, history and power. Set in May 1938, the young novelist Aoyama Chizuko sails from Japan to Taiwan where her interpreter proffers tantalising glimpses of island life and helps her to taste as much of cuisine as her larger-than-life appetite can bear.

‘Yáng Shuāng-zǐ’s Taiwan Travelogue is a nesting-doll narrative about colonial power in its many forms.’ Shahnaz Habib, New York Times Book Review

‘Within Yáng’s tough assessment of her well-meaning and fundamentally likable narrator lies a plea for introspection on the part of the powerful, and a reminder of what is at stake when that responsibility is neglected.’ Talya Zax, The Atlantic

‘Yáng offers rich reflections on colonialism and translation along with delightful depictions of Taiwanese delicacies.’ Publishers Weekly

‘A (fictional) Japanese writer explores the colourful and complex culinary, linguistic, and political dynamics that shaped life in 1930s Taiwan . . . A moving account of friendship in the shadow of the Japanese Southern Expansion policy.’ Kirkus Reviews

‘Yáng Shuāng-zǐ’s Taiwan Travelogue is a metafictional lesbian romance between a writer and an interpreter, styled as a rediscovered colonial-era novel in translation, complete with footnotes.’ New Statesman

‘This book, presented as a ‘lost’ novel by a Japanese writer invited to tour Taiwan in 1938, is many things at once: an interrogation of how Japanese Southern Expansion transformed Taiwan, an exploration of the complexities of translation (of language, of culture, of ontology) and a deceptively knotty queer love story. But what stands out most is its mouth-wateringly detailed descriptions of Taiwanese cuisine, which structure the book (each chapter is named for a different dish) and through which Yang deftly shines a light on food as a key site of colonial violence.’ Odhran O’Donoghue, Vittles

‘Yáng Shuāng-zǐ’s Taiwan Travelogue is a metafictional lesbian romance between a writer and an interpreter, styled as a rediscovered colonial-era novel in translation, complete with footnotes.’ New Statesman

Yáng Shuāng-zǐ is a writer of fiction, essays, manga and video game scripts, and literary criticism. Her works have been translated into Japanese and French.

Lin King’s writing and translations have appeared in Boston Review, Joyland, Asymptote, and Columbia Journal.

A bittersweet story of love between two women, nested in an artful exploration of language, history, and power.

‘Reading the book is like peeling an onion: the smell is at first undetectable; but with each layer you peel, the smell gets more intoxicating, pungent, intense, and at the very end, it brings tears to your eyes.’ Christina Ng

‘This delicious book is a banquet for the heart and soul. Each dish and chapter offered both fills the reader and also leaves them salivating for more. At the same time, Taiwan Travelogue is about so much more than the food it describes. This is a story of translation and colonialism, na