Taiwan Travelogue wins the International Booker Prize 2026
Yáng Shuāng-zǐ's Taiwan Travelogue, translated by Lin King, is the first book translated from Mandarin Chinese to win the International Booker Prize.
Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, won the 2026 International Booker Prize, announced on 19 May 2026. Author and translator share the £50,000 prize. The book is published in the UK by And Other Stories.
The novel presents itself as a rediscovered, and fictional, travel memoir set in Taiwan under Japanese rule in the 1930s. Its two main characters, both women, set out together on a culinary tour of the island, and the book works both as a romance and as a novel about colonial power. It had already won the 2024 US National Book Award for translated literature.
It is the first book translated from Mandarin Chinese to win the prize, and Yáng and King are the first Taiwanese and Taiwanese-American winners. The judges, chaired by Natasha Brown, chose it from 128 submissions. The other shortlisted books were by Shida Bazyar, Rene Karabash, Daniel Kehlmann, Ana Paula Maia and Marie NDiaye. And Other Stories also published the 2025 winner, Heart Lamp.
A novel that frames itself as a translation, and then wins a prize for translation, is a neat piece of symmetry. More practically, it is a second consecutive win for a small independent press, which suggests that careful acquisition of translated fiction can compete with the largest publishers on equal terms.
Sources: NPR: 2026 International Booker Prize goes to 'Taiwan Travelogue'; Publishing Perspectives: 2026 International Booker longlist.