International Booker Prize 2026 winners speak at SOAS
The SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies welcomed novelist Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translator Lin King last month to discuss the book, Taiwan Travelogue.
Held before the pair were announced as landmark winners of the 2026 International Booker Prize for their work, the event brought together members of the public, the Taiwanese community in the UK, SOAS students and colleagues, and literary scholars working on Sinophone and postcolonial literature.
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.
Looking at the complexities of Taiwan’s historical experience from a wider lens, the discussion also delved into the book’s treatment of colonial history, memory, language, food culture, and identity, as well as the role of translation in shaping how Taiwanese literature reaches global audiences.
Yáng Shuāng-zǐ reflected on her motivations for writing the novel, describing it as a response to Taiwan’s fragmented historical memory and a deeply personal act of writing connected to the memory of her late sister. She discussed the novel’s layered fictional structure, a contemporary “translation” of a supposedly earlier text, and the significance of its different historical timelines - which trace changing political and cultural conditions across the twentieth century.
Sharing more on the personal experience working on the book in an interview with The Booker Prizes, Yáng added: “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. “
Lin King shared her wider thoughts on the challenges and creative decisions involved in translating the novel into English. She discussed how the book is not only about Taiwan, but also about the all-important act of translation itself.
