Taiwan Travelogue, a novel by Taiwanese writer Yang Shuang-zi about forbidden love and Taiwanese food, has won the International Booker Prize 2026.
Taiwan Travelogue is the first book translated from Mandarin Chinese to English to win the the prestigious award.
The International Booker Prize recognizes the vital work of translation, with the 50,000 pound prize money divided equally between the author and Lin King, the book's Taiwanese-American translator.
An English translation by Lin King was published by Graywolf Press in 2024. It won the US National Book Award for Translated Literature the same year, the first Taiwanese book to win the award.
The novel, which takes the form of a fictional translation of a rediscovered Japanese travel memoir, explores history, power, class, colonialism and love through the lens of two women's culinary tour across Japan-controlled Taiwan in the 1930s.
Taiwan Travelogue follows fictional Japanese writer Aoyama Chizuko and her Taiwanese interpreter Chizuru, both of whom falls in love with each other during a government-sponsored tour of Taiwan.
The novel is presented as an autobiographical novel written by Aoyama.
"Taiwan Travelogue pulls off an incredible double feat: it succeeds as both a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel. As judges, we've enjoyed rich discussions about the many layers of this book. It's a captivating, slyly sophisticated novel," says Natasha Brown, the Chair of judges.
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