Taiwanese Novel Wins International Booker Prize

Why this is here: The winning novel features descriptions of dozens of dishes, with the author identifying braised pork rice as a common dish found on nearly every Taiwanese table.

Yáng Shuang-zi and Lin King won the International Booker Prize for Taiwan Travelogue, a novel translated from Mandarin. This marks the first time a book originally written in Mandarin has received the award, and the first win for a Taiwanese author and translator. The novel, set in 1930s Taiwan under Japanese rule, follows Aoyama, a writer, as she travels the island and falls in love with her interpreter, Chizuru.

Yáng explains she wrote the book to convey a message about Taiwanese identity, especially following the 2014 anti-China protests. She notes Taiwan’s complex history—colonized by the Qin dynasty, Japan, and the People’s Republic of China—has left it struggling to process its past. Lin King translated the novel from Taiwanese, motivated by a fear of cultural and linguistic erasure.

The book also explores themes of female desire through the protagonist’s intense relationship with food, with Yáng citing braised pork rice as a particularly resonant symbol of Taiwanese culture. The authors are still in London discussing the novel’s themes. Further research is needed to fully understand the lasting impact of Taiwan’s colonial past.