Taiwan Travelogue, a historical novel written by Yáng Shuāng-zi and translated into English by Lin King, has won the 2026 International Booker Prize, in a first for a Taiwanese author and for a book originally written in Mandarin Chinese.
Described by the judges as “a captivating, slyly sophisticated novel”, Taiwan Travelogue was the bookmakers’ favourite ahead of the other five shortlisted books, whose subjects ranged from creativity in the face of an authoritarian regime, the plight of a family leaving and returning to Iran over four post-revolutionary decades, a fantastical take on the relationship between mothers and daughters, questions of gender and honour in rural Albania, and the human capacity for violence.
The winning book, on the other hand, “succeeds as both a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel”, said the chair of this year’s judges, author Natasha Brown. Set in 1930s Taiwan, while the island was under Japanese rule, the story follows a fictional Japanese author on a tour of the island, and her deepening relationship with her Taiwanese guide and interpreter. Brown summed up the book’s central question as “can love overcome a power imbalance?”.