Profound love story makes history by winning the 2026 International Booker Prize. Taiwan Travelogue has made history as the first novel translated from Mandarin to win the International Booker Prize, praised by judges as a captivating, slyly sophisticated love story.
Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King, has been named the 2026 winner of the International Booker Prize, the world’s most influential award for translated fiction. The historic announcement was made on May 19th by award-winning author Natasha Brown, Chair of the 2026 judges, at a ceremony held in the Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Modern.
The triumph marks a significant milestone for the prestigious literary award, as Yáng and King are the first Taiwanese and Taiwanese-American winners in its history. Taiwan Travelogue is also the first winning book to have been translated from Mandarin Chinese. Celebrating the vital work of translation, the £50,000 prize money will be divided equally between the author and the translator, both of whom received a trophy at the London ceremony.
Presented as a fictional translation of a rediscovered Japanese travel memoir, the novel explores history, power, and love through the lens of two women’s culinary tour across 1930s Japan-controlled Taiwan. The narrative follows a Japanese novelist with a ‘monstrous appetite’ and a local interpreter who shares her passion for food.
When the original Mandarin Chinese version was published in 2020, it became an instant sensation, even causing a stir among readers who initially believed it to be a genuine 1930s text. The addition of Lin King’s English translation and footnotes has since prompted critics to praise its intricate, nesting-doll qualities.
Natasha Brown described the winning work as “a book that is a love letter to translation”. Elaborating on behalf of the judging panel, Brown said: “Can love overcome a power imbalance? Taiwan Travelogue teases out the nuances of this question against a backdrop of 1930s Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule. Taiwan Travelogue pulls off an incredible double feat: it succeeds as both a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel. As judges, we’ve enjoyed rich discussions about the many layers of this book. It’s a captivating, slyly sophisticated novel.”
Brown was joined on the judging panel by writer, broadcaster, and Oxford University Professor Marcus du Sautoy; International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator Sophie Hughes; writer and editor Troy Onyango; and novelist Nilanjana S. Roy. The panel was tasked with selecting the best work of long-form fiction or short story collection translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland between 1 May 2025 and 30 April 2026.
Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, spoke warmly of the final deliberations. “The judges’ meeting to decide the winner was inspiring,” Wood said. “They had read each of the shortlisted books at least three times and they described them in turn: how the books had changed each time they read them, how aspects of them shifted as a result of the judging discussions themselves. It was a wonderful act of collective reading, in which every one of the shortlisted books – each a strong contender for the prize – was found to have acquired depth. Eventually, one rose to the top: inventive, playful, witty and profound, Taiwan Travelogue is a love story that had the judges’ hearts as well as their minds.”
Yáng, who also writes essays, manga, video game scripts, and literary criticism, has previously been awarded Taiwan’s highest literary honour, the Golden Tripod Award, for the original novel. Commenting on the research process for Taiwan Travelogue - her first book to be translated into English - Yáng remarked: “the novel’s central themes of travel and food changed my life in two obvious ways: my savings went down; my weight went up.”
The English translation has already achieved considerable critical and commercial success, winning the National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2024 and Asia Society’s inaugural Baifang Schell Book Prize. Despite only being published in the UK in March this year, following its longlist announcement on 24 February, it became the second-bestselling title on the 2026 shortlist. According to betting aggregator OLBG.com, the book was the bookmakers’ favourite to win with odds of 5/2, experiencing a 65 per cent week-on-week sales uplift following the shortlist announcement. Global interest remains exceptionally high, with international rights already sold in 23 territories, stretching from Serbia to Indonesia, and Brazil to Ukraine.
Reflecting on the tone of the book in an interview for bookerprizes.com, translator Lin King highlighted the importance of capturing everyday humanity amidst historical adversity. “I personally dislike historical fiction that is strictly miserable,” King said. “These stories ring to me as untrue, because no matter how difficult times are, I believe that humans always manage to find flickers of levity and deep wells of love. Were Taiwan’s peoples oppressed and mistreated under Japanese rule? Yes, but that does not mean their identities and personalities were bulldozed over by their suffering. There was still humour, good food, movies, school, petty fights, and romance. To suggest otherwise is to reduce a culture to its trauma. That’s what I appreciate about Taiwan Travelogue.”
