Taiwan’s Booker Comment

Yang Shuang-zi said her International Booker Prize shortlist spot feels like “a collective achievement,” not a solo milestone for one author. (focustaiwan.tw) Yang made the remarks in Bangkok on April 12 while attending a literary forum held alongside the Chommanard International Women’s Literary Award, where *Taiwan Travelogue* was also named a finalist. She told Central News Agency that translator Lin King was essential to the book’s reach in English. (focustaiwan.tw) Her novel became the first work by a Taiwanese writer to reach the six-book shortlist for the 2026 International Booker Prize, announced on March 31. The field was cut from 13 longlisted titles and 128 submissions. (focustaiwan.tw) The International Booker honors fiction translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. Each shortlisted author-translator pair receives £5,000, and the winner, due to be announced on May 19 at Tate Modern in London, splits a £50,000 prize. (focustaiwan.tw, publishersweekly.com) *Taiwan Travelogue*, first published in Mandarin in 2020, is set in 1938 and follows a culinary journey through colonial Taiwan while exploring friendship and identity. The English edition won the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature, and the British edition was released in March 2026. (focustaiwan.tw, www.moc.gov.tw) Yang said Taiwan needs more translated books to reach international readers, and she argued that the island’s literary output extends beyond novels to poetry, essays, and theater. She also said Taiwan needs stronger incentives for foreign translators competing among many Chinese-language works. (focustaiwan.tw) Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture cast the shortlist as a first for the island and noted that Wu Ming-yi’s *The Stolen Bicycle* had previously made the longlist in 2018. The ministry also said government support included a youth creative grant and translation funding. (www.moc.gov.tw, focustaiwan.tw) The Booker Prize Foundation says Yang writes fiction, essays, manga, video game scripts, and criticism, and that *Taiwan Travelogue* is her first book translated into English. The foundation’s author page says the novel has been published or is forthcoming in languages including Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Ukrainian, Italian, German, Dutch, Danish, and Greek. (thebookerprizes.com) Yang said readers abroad often see Taiwan through “a narrow lens” because too few Taiwanese voices have been heard. Her point in Bangkok was that one shortlist can open a door, but only if more books cross it. (focustaiwan.tw)