Taiwan author’s Booker note

Yang Shuang-zi said her International Booker Prize shortlisting felt like a team effort, and she used the moment to argue that Taiwan needs more translated books abroad. (focustaiwan.tw) She made the remarks in Bangkok on April 12 while attending a literary forum tied to the Chommanard International Women’s Literary Award, where *Taiwan Travelogue* was also a finalist. Yang told Central News Agency that translator Lin King was essential to the book’s reach in English. (focustaiwan.tw) The Booker Prize Foundation announced the 2026 International Booker shortlist on March 31, selecting six finalists from a longlist of 13 and an initial field of 128 submissions. *Taiwan Travelogue* is the first work by a Taiwanese writer to reach the shortlist, and the winner will be announced on May 19 in London. (focustaiwan.tw) The prize is for fiction translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland, so authors share the stage with translators. Each shortlisted author-translator pair receives £5,000, and the winning pair splits £50,000. (focustaiwan.tw) That structure helps explain Yang’s emphasis on the people around the book. She said international recognition depends on writers, translators, publishers, literary agents and public support moving together, while Taiwan has expanded translation support programs in recent years. (focustaiwan.tw) Yang also framed the shortlist as part of a larger push for Taiwanese writing overseas. She said too few Taiwanese novels are being translated, and added that Taiwan’s poetry, essays and theater also deserve wider readership. (focustaiwan.tw) *Taiwan Travelogue*, first published in Mandarin in 2020, is set in 1938 and follows a culinary journey across Taiwan while exploring friendship and colonial identity. The English edition won the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature, and the British edition was released by And Other Stories in March 2026. (thebookerprizes.com) (culture.tw) Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture called the shortlist the first for a literary work from Taiwan and said it was the only Asian title on this year’s six-book list. The ministry also pointed to earlier public support, including a youth creative grant and translation funding. (culture.tw) (focustaiwan.tw) Yang said she wants international readers to see Taiwan’s diversity more clearly, not through what she called a narrow lens. Her closing argument was practical: Taiwan does not just need a dock for books to leave the island, she said, but a full bridge for the whole literary team to cross. (focustaiwan.tw)