Overview
- At London’s Tate Modern, the prize that honors fiction translated into English named Yang Shuang-zi the winner for Taiwan Travelogue, with the £50,000 split between author and translator.
- Set in 1930s Taiwan under Japanese rule, the novel follows a Japanese writer and a local translator whose relationship unfolds against colonial power dynamics.
- Coverage from multiple outlets reports this as the first time a work originally written in Mandarin has received the International Booker Prize.
- Accepting the award, Yang said literature cannot separate itself from politics and pointed to Taiwan’s experience under colonial powers and the threat of invasion.
- Two German finalists, Shida Bazyar and Daniel Kehlmann, did not win, though the Booker organization says both winners and shortlisted writers typically see a strong rise in sales and a broader global readership.