Yang Shuang‑zi events

Yáng Shuāng-zǐ’s *Taiwan Travelogue* is moving beyond prize coverage and into a run of public events, with a London conversation set for May 18 ahead of the 2026 International Booker winner announcement. (soas.ac.uk) The School of Oriental and African Studies said its Centre of Taiwan Studies will host Yáng and translator Lin King from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on May 18, 2026, at Senate House in London. The event will focus on historical fiction, translation, and “the global reach of Taiwanese literature.” (soas.ac.uk) SOAS said the discussion will center on *Taiwan Travelogue* as a novel that mixes food writing, travel narrative, and layered storytelling to examine identity, language, and cultural memory in colonial-era Taiwan. The school said Lin King will discuss translating the book’s stylistic shifts, humor, and cultural references into English. (soas.ac.uk) The book reached the 2026 International Booker shortlist on March 31, with the Booker site listing it as one of six finalists. The prize page describes the novel as set in May 1938, following Japanese novelist Aoyama Chizuko and her Taiwanese interpreter, Chizuru, on a journey across Taiwan. (thebookerprizes.com; moc.gov.tw) Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture said the shortlist marks the first time a literary work from Taiwan has reached the International Booker shortlist. The ministry also said *Taiwan Travelogue* won the 2024 U.S. National Book Award for Translated Literature. (moc.gov.tw) The Booker page says the English edition was published by And Other Stories on March 5, 2026. Pan Macmillan’s India listing shows a separate ebook edition dated April 24, 2026, a sign that English-language distribution is widening as the shortlist drives attention. (thebookerprizes.com; panmacmillan.com) The novel’s setup is unusually self-conscious: the Booker page says it is presented as if it were a translation of a rediscovered Japanese text, while Pan Macmillan says it first appeared in Mandarin Chinese in 2020. Both pages describe the story as a romance shaped by colonial power imbalances. (thebookerprizes.com; panmacmillan.com) SOAS has spent much of 2026 building programming around Taiwanese literature in translation. In January, the Centre of Taiwan Studies held a workshop on how Taiwanese writing travels across languages, cultures, and borders. (soas.ac.uk) World Book Day’s 2026 resources page also includes “Author and Illustrator Videos” among its activity materials, part of a broader reading campaign tied to the United Kingdom’s National Year of Reading. That gives publishers another route to place writers in front of new readers outside the usual prize circuit. (worldbookday.com; worldbookday.com) For now, the clearest next date is May 18 in London, where Yáng and Lin King are scheduled to talk through the book’s history, language, and afterlife in English on the eve of the Booker decision. (soas.ac.uk)