Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, wins the International Booker Prize 2026
Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King, is named the 2026 winner of the International Booker Prize supported by Bukhman Philanthropies
- Taiwan Travelogue is the first book translated from Mandarin Chinese to win the International Booker Prize
- The winning author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translator Lin King are the first Taiwanese and Taiwanese and American winners of the prize
- The winning book, which takes the form of a fictional translation of a rediscovered Japanese travel memoir, explores history, power and love through the lens of two women’s culinary tour across 1930s Japan-controlled Taiwan
- Taiwan Travelogue was the bookmakers’ favourite to win the prize
- It is ‘a captivating, slyly sophisticated’ book that ‘succeeds as both a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel’ according to Natasha Brown, Chair of the 2026 judges
- Yáng – also a writer of manga and video game scripts – said of researching the book, her first translated into English: ‘the novel’s central themes of travel and food changed my life in two obvious ways: my savings went down; my weight went up’
- Independent press And Other Stories pulls off back-to-back wins after their 2025 success with Heart Lamp
The winning book was announced by award-winning author Natasha Brown, Chair of the 2026 judges, at a ceremony in the Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Modern. The International Booker Prize recognises the vital work of translation, with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between the author and the translator. Each received a trophy, presented by Brown.
The evening included a screening of six short films starring critically acclaimed actors Kae Alexander, Jehnny Beth, Toheeb Jimoh, Toby Jones, Xelia Mendes-Jones and Indira Varma performing extracts from the shortlisted books, with the winning title read by Alexander. The announcement of the winner was shared with a global audience via a livestream on the Booker Prizes’ YouTube, Instagram and TikTok channels and can be watched here. The event also featured red-carpet interviews with high-profile guests for the Booker Prizes’ social accounts.
The winning book was chosen by the 2026 judging panel. Brown was joined on the panel by writer, broadcaster and Oxford University Professor of Mathematics and for the Public Understanding of Science Marcus du Sautoy; International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator Sophie Hughes; writer, Lolwe editor and bookseller Troy Onyango; and award-winning novelist and columnist Nilanjana S. Roy. In selecting their winner, the judges were looking for the best work of long-form fiction or collection of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 May 2025 and 30 April 2026. The winner judging meeting took place in the Drawing Room at Poon’s London’s Somerset House restaurant, as part of a collaboration for the 2026 prize.
Presented as the translation of a rediscovered (fictional) travel memoir, and exploring themes of colonialism, power, class and love, Taiwan Travelogue follows a Japanese novelist with a ‘monstrous appetite’ on a culinary tour through Japan-occupied Taiwan, accompanied by a local interpreter who shares her passion for food. The original Mandarin Chinese publication was a sensation when it was first published in 2020, causing a stir with some readers who thought it was a real translation of a 1930s Japanese text, whilst the extra layer of Lin King’s English language translation (and accompanying footnotes) has prompted critics to remark on its nesting-doll or onion-like qualities.
Natasha Brown, International Booker Prize 2026 Chair of judges, on the winning book:
‘Can love overcome a power imbalance? Taiwan Travelogue, winner of the International Booker Prize 2026, teases out the nuances of this question against a backdrop of 1930s Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule.
‘Taiwan Travelogue follows Aoyama, a well-meaning author from Japan, and her Taiwanese interpreter, Chizuru, on a government-sponsored tour of Taiwan. From their first meeting, sparks fly between the two women. The power dynamics inherent to their burgeoning relationship, however, prove difficult to navigate. Chizuru is a cipher: enchanting, yet unknowable. She resists all of Aoyama’s efforts to pierce her carefully-constructed mask of professionalism.
‘This book doesn’t shy away from the complexities (both real and fictional) of its journey into the English language. Instead, it uses the hallmarks of a more traditional text – introductions, footnotes, afterwords – to wrap an intriguing metafictional layer around its core love story. Lin King’s deft translation perfectly conveys the nuances of the novel’s narrative voices.
‘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.’
Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, adds:
‘The judges’ meeting to decide the winner was inspiring. 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. I look forward to witnessing from afar the ongoing travels of this remarkable book.’
Taiwan Travelogue, winner of the International Booker Prize 2026
© India Hobson for The Booker Prize FoundationThe winning author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ is a writer of fiction, essays, manga and video game scripts and literary criticism. She was awarded Taiwan’s highest literary honour, the Golden Tripod Award, for the original Mandarin Chinese version of Taiwan Travelogue and Lin King’s English language translation of Taiwan Travelogue – the first of Yáng’s books to be translated into English – won the National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2024 and Asia Society’s inaugural Baifang Schell Book Prize. King has also been recognised for her fiction writing – she has received the PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and her debut novel, Weeb, is forthcoming.
Taiwan Travelogue is the 11th winner of the International Booker Prize, which this year celebrated a decade since the first winner was awarded the prize in its current form, in 2016. Yáng is the first Taiwanese author and King the first Taiwanese and American translator to win the prize, whilst Yáng is the seventh female author and King the 10th female translator to win. Taiwan Travelogue is the first winning book to have been translated from Mandarin Chinese.
Despite only publishing in March this year in the UK – following the longlist announcement on 24 February – Taiwan Travelogue was the second-bestselling title on the International Booker Prize 2026 shortlist. The book saw a 65% sales uplift week-on-week following the shortlist announcement. To date, rights have been sold in a total of 23 territories, ranging from Serbia to Indonesia and Brazil to Ukraine. With odds of 5/2, it was the bookmakers’ favourite to win the prize, according to OLBG.com.
This is the second win for Sheffield-based independent press And Other Stories, swiftly following their 2025 win for Heart Lamp, written by Banu Mushtaq and translated by Deepa Bhasthi – the first collection of short stories to win the prize and the first translated from Kannada. Taiwan Travelogue marked their seventh nomination for the prize: The Remainder was shortlisted in 2019, Wretchedness was longlisted in 2021, Phenotypes was longlisted in 2022, Boulder was shortlisted in 2023 and The Book of Disappearance was longlisted in 2025, along with Heart Lamp. They are the ninth independent publisher to win the prize.
What the winning author and translator said about writing and translating Taiwan Travelogue
Yáng Shuāng-zǐ:
‘Both Korea and Taiwan were once colonies of the Japanese Empire, but Koreans seem to feel uniformly resentful of that history, whereas Taiwanese people regard it with a much more conflicted mix of distaste and nostalgia. Using a contemporary Taiwanese lens, I wanted to untangle the complex circumstances that Taiwan’s people faced in the past, and to explore what kind of future we ought to strive toward.
‘Research for the novel’s central themes of travel and food changed my life in two obvious ways: my savings went down; my weight went up.’
Lin King:
‘I personally dislike historical fiction that is strictly miserable. 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.’
‘I worked very closely with my editor at Graywolf [the book’s US publisher], Yuka Igarashi, who trusted me to run wild with a complex mix of languages, notations, and footnotes. We took a maximalist approach, broke countless translation ‘rules’, and ended up with an experimental, multilayered work that we can be proud of.
‘As a translator it was such a rare opportunity.’
Read the full author and translator interviews here.
Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and Lin King, author and translator of Taiwan Travelogue
© David Parry for Booker Prize FoundationWhat the critics have said about Taiwan Travelogue
‘As rich and heady as some of the dishes that Chi-chan prepares for Aoyama, Taiwan Travelogue is a multi-layered meditation on language and longing, and on the many ways in which we travel only to arrive where we started.’ – Ángel Gurría-Quintana, Financial Times
‘Presented as the translated text of a (fictional) historical memoir, and exploring themes of colonialism and queer love, Taiwan Travelogue follows a Japanese novelist’s culinary journey through Taiwan, accompanied by a local interpreter who shares her love of food.
‘Yáng has structured her novel like a matryoshka doll: a straightforward story surrounded by many twisting layers of mystery.’ – Talya Zax, The Atlantic
‘Yang Shuang-zi’s Taiwan Travelogue, a National Book Award winner, is a nesting-doll narrative about colonial power in its many forms.
‘First published in Mandarin Chinese in 2020, [it] is a delightfully slippery novel about how power shapes relationships, and what travel reveals and conceals… There are multiple afterwords and many footnotes from both fictional and real translators. It all amounts to a virtuosic performance of literary polyphony.’ – Shahnaz Habib, The New York Times
More about the International Booker Prize 2026 shortlist
The judges selected their winning book from a shortlist of six novels: The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar, translated from German by Ruth Martin, She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel, The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated from German by Ross Benjamin, On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan, The Witch by Marie NDiaye, translated from French by Jordan Stump and Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King. The longlist of 13 books, chosen from 128 books submitted by publishers, was revealed on 24 February 2026.
Each shortlisted title was awarded a prize of £5,000: £2,500 for the author and £2,500 for the translator.
Read ‘Everything you need to know about the International Booker Prize 2026 Shortlist’
Thanks to Bukhman Philanthropies’ generous support for the 2026 prize, the Booker Prize Foundation has donated 500 sets of the International Booker Prize shortlist to libraries across the UK, in partnership with The Reading Agency. By gifting these six titles and accompanying promotional materials to local communities through library authorities, the aim is to engage more readers with the world’s best translated fiction. Bukhman Philanthropies is a grant-giving organisation that, in addition to supporting literature, focuses on charities working in neonatal and maternal health and mental health and wellbeing.
Crankstart continues to fund the Booker Prize and the Booker Prize Foundation’s work as a whole. For more information on how the Booker Prize Foundation is funded see here.
The International Booker Prize 2026 shortlist films were released in mid-April. Directed by Holly Blakey, they were filmed at the Southbank Centre in London, with the cast dressed in a mixture of vintage and contemporary Vivienne Westwood designs. Since being published on the Booker Prizes social media platforms on 16 April, the International Booker Prize 2026 shortlist films have been viewed over 61.5 million times, up 82.7% on last year’s films. All six films can be watched here.
The Booker Prize Foundation has created sets of short films featuring well-known actors for its two annual prizes since 2022. The films, released in spring and autumn, have become one of the highlights of the International Booker Prize and the Booker Prize seasons, with the 2025 films for both prizes viewed online more than 100 million times. The films are award-winners themselves: the shorts produced for the Booker Prize 2025 shortlist, directed by Sasha Nathwani, recently won a Webby Award – which recognise excellence on the internet – and a Brand Film Award, whilst the Booker Prize 2022 films, directed by Kevin Thomas, won the Culture category of The Drum Awards for Marketing EMEA 2023.
The International Booker Prize 2026 shortlist
© India Hobson for Booker Prize FoundationThe ceremony
The evening was attended by the 2026 judges, shortlisted authors and translators, along with high-profile figures from the entertainment and arts world.
The ceremony was hosted by Booker Prize Foundation Chief Executive Gaby Wood and featured a conversation between Wood and Emeritus Director of the International Booker Prize Fiammetta Rocco about the trajectory and impact of the prize over the last decade. Chair of judges Natasha Brown announced the winner in a speech on stage in which she said: ‘We are living through times when it can seem like nuance is in short supply. Times when empathy, understanding, and even basic human decency is often cast as weakness. Books, I think, offer an antidote. They’re these little empathy machines. With the ability to spread, to travel, to open minds. Books aren’t bound by borders, cultures or even – thanks to translators – language barriers.’
The International Booker Prize 10th anniversary
This year marks 10 years since the announcement of the first winner of the International Booker Prize in its current form; The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated from Korean by Deborah Smith, was awarded the inaugural prize in 2016. This month it was announced as the winner of a readers’ poll to find the favourite International Booker Prize winner from the past decade, taking the top spot after securing just under a third of the almost 10,000 votes cast.
Since its launch, the International Booker Prize has promoted 10 winners in 10 languages from Arabic to Polish, Bulgarian to Kannada. Five authors recognised by the International Booker Prize in that time have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. As well as Han, they include Jon Fosse, Annie Ernaux, Olga Tokarczuk and László Krasznahorkai. Find out more about the 10 winners here.
International Booker Prize 10th anniversary celebrations have also included a one-off public event held at London’s Southbank Centre on Friday, 8 May. Global superstar and Service95 Book Club founder Dua Lipa gave a special introduction for the event, which brought together influential voices from the International Booker Prize’s history to offer an immersive look at how exceptional translated fiction is created and championed. The evening concluded with a reading of The Vegetarian by Sex Education, Bridgerton and Devil Wears Prada 2 actor Simone Ashley. You can watch clips of Dua Lipa’s speech here.
This year, the Booker Prize Foundation launched a marketing campaign for the prize, ‘Fiction beyond borders’, which featured a series of engaging videos to introduce readers to the nominated books and the judges. Watch here. The campaign, which also celebrated the 10th anniversary of the prize, invited readers around the world to come together and explore this year’s nominated books – and the previous 10 winners – united by a shared love of great fiction. Watch the campaign films here.
The Booker Prize Foundation is a charity partner of ethical online bookshop BookKind. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the International Booker Prize, readers can enjoy a range of discounts on prize-winning titles at BookKind, as well as 15% off this year’s winning title, Taiwan Travelogue, which can be bought here after the winner is announced on Tuesday, 19 May until the end of June 2026. 10% of every purchase is donated to the Booker Prize Foundation, supporting our work to help readers and writers of the future.
Who’s reading translated fiction in the UK today – new research
New NielsenIQ BookData research commissioned by the Booker Prize Foundation to mark the 10th anniversary of the prize found that buyers of translated fiction in the UK skew younger, more male and more diverse than a decade ago and significantly more so than buyers of general fiction. And as the prize has grown in significance and popularity, sales of translated fiction have boomed among readers in the UK: 3.8m volumes of translated literature were sold in 2025, up more than 30% on 2016 – excluding graphic novels, comics and manga.
Buyers of translated fiction are, on average, significantly younger than buyers of ‘general fiction’ (Nielsen’s umbrella term which includes all adult fiction bought for leisure in the UK). The largest share of translated fiction purchases in 2025 was made by those aged 25-34, while the largest share of general fiction purchases came from buyers aged 60-84.
Buyers of translated fiction are also more ethnically diverse, more likely to have a child under the age of 18 at home and more likely to buy books from an independent bookseller. And at a time when it’s reported that men are reading less fiction than ever, translated fiction bucks the trend: 51.3% of translated fiction in 2025 was bought by male readers, compared with only 37.2% of general fiction.
The most popular languages in translation also appear to have changed over the years. In 2016, books translated into English from Swedish, French and Italian were the most bought by UK readers; in 2025, it was books translated from Japanese, French and Russian (driven partly by an increase in sales of classic Russian literature). Read an article with key findings from the research on the Booker Prizes website here.
Dua Lipa making a speech at the International Booker Prize 10th anniversary event at Southbank Centre, London
© Madison PhippsThe International Booker Prize’s global impact
The International Booker Prize continues to build in global importance each year. As the 2026 winners, Yáng and King can expect a worldwide readership and a significant increase in profile and sales, including in the author’s home country of Taiwan – and translation rights deals.
The announcement of the 2025 winner, Heart Lamp, written by Banu Mushtaq and translated by Deepa Bhasthi – the first collection of short stories to win the prize and the first translated from Kannada – was reported in over 1,826 pieces of media coverage across 60 countries around the world in the week after its win. The winners’ speech had over 30 million views on the Booker Prizes’ social channels. The book rapidly sold out in the UK in the subsequent days, with the UK publisher And Other Stories immediately reprinting 40,000 copies. In December 2025 it was a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime pick.
According to And Other Stories, sales of the paperback have increased by 527% since it won the International Booker Prize 2025. Prior to the winner announcement in May 2025, it had sold 5,100 copies in the UK; it has now sold over 32,000 copies. Prior to its longlisting, translation rights to Heart Lamp had been sold in eight languages. It has now sold in a total of 30 languages.
Opportunities to meet the International Booker Prize 2026 winners
As well as an event organised by the publisher And Other Stories in which Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and Lin King are in conversation with food writer Fuchsia Dunlop at BookBar Chelsea on Friday 22 May, official International Booker Prize 2026 winner events include:
Winners’ event at Waterstones Piccadilly, London with Natasha Brown: Thursday, 21 May, 6.30pm BST
Yáng and King will appear in their first public event after the announcement, in conversation with this year’s Chair of judges and award-winning author Natasha Brown at Waterstones’ flagship Piccadilly bookshop.
Tickets have sold out.
Winners’ event at Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye: Sunday, 24 May 2026, 5.30pm
Booker Prize Foundation Chief Executive Gaby Wood will be joined by one of this year’s judges, author and International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator, Sophie Hughes, in conversation with Yáng and King.
Tickets are sold out.
International Booker Prize 2026 event at Edinburgh International Book Festival: Thursday, 20 August 2026
An event with Yáng and King in conversation with International Booker Prize Emeritus Director Fiammetta Rocco.
Tickets for the festival go on sale on Thursday, 25 June.
The International Booker Prize 2026 judges – Sophie Hughes, Marcus du Sautoy, Natasha Brown, Troy Onyango and Nilanjana S. Roy – photographed at Poon’s London
© Sophie Davidson for Booker Prize Foundation