Taiwanese novel is 1st Mandarin Chinese work to win International Booker Prize

As a queer love story between two Asian women, rooted in a colonial past rarely examined in Western literary spaces, “Taiwan Travelogue” shows that Asian diasporic histories can achieve major wins.

Image via The Booker Prizes | YouTube

Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translator Lin King’s queer colonial romance has become the first Mandarin Chinese work to win one of fiction’s most prestigious international honors last week.

A love story layered in colonial history

Set in 1938 Japan-occupied Taiwan, “Taiwan Travelogue” centers on Aoyama Chizuko, a young Japanese …