Newly crowned International Booker prize winner Yáng Shuāng-zǐ has warned that the Taiwanese people are suffering from a profound identity crisis as the self-governing democracy faces ongoing geopolitical threats from Beijing, per theguardian.com interview.
Speaking the morning after accepting the £50,000 literary award for her historical novel Taiwan Travelogue at London’s Tate Modern on Tuesday, May 19, the 41-year-old author rejected any separation between art and politics, declaring that literature cannot be isolated from the soil in which it grows.
Yáng expressed deep anxiety over the shifting sense of statehood on the island, where some residents identify as Chinese and others as Taiwanese. Pointing to the historic shadow of Japanese colonial rule in the 1930s, the setting for her celebrated novel, she questioned whether the population wants to experience subjugation again. Yáng stated firmly that she refuses to live as a second-class citizen in her own land.
The author’s geopolitical concerns are mirrored by her Taiwanese-American translator, Lin King, 33, who pledged to translate only Taiwanese literature following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. On stage, King described Taiwan’s literary landscape as an unruly, self-contradicting cacophony reflective of a healthy, robust democracy, rather than a monolithic chorus.
Taiwan Travelogue explores these power dynamics through a fictional, colonial-era queer romance between a touring Japanese novelist and her local female interpreter. Yáng, who is in a relationship with a woman, placed her book within a progressive lineage of Taiwanese queer literature that flourished in the 1990s. She asserted that Taiwan, which legalised same-sex marriage in 2019, remains the most progressive state in East Asia for both women’s and LGBTQ+ rights.
The trajectory of the novel marks a milestone for translated fiction, becoming the first book originally written in Mandarin Chinese to win the International Booker prize. Despite winning the US National Book Award in 2024, its UK release by independent publisher And Other Stories was delayed for two years because other publishers refused to grant King front-cover billing alongside Yáng.
The interview highlights how contemporary cross-strait tensions are reshaping global perceptions of Taiwanese literature. With military pressures from Beijing mounting and unpredictable shifts in US foreign policy, Taiwanese writers are increasingly leveraging historical fiction to assert national identity, using the creative process of translation to safeguard their cultural independence on the world stage.
•Featured image: Translator Lin King, left, and author Yáng Shuāng-zi, winners of the 2026 International Booker prize/Alicia Canter/The Guardian
