International Booker Prize 2026: Mandarin Book, Taiwan Travelogue, Wins Award for Fiction Translated into English

After months of anticipation, the day has finally arrived! The International Booker Prize 2026 has announced its winner. Taiwan Travelogue becomes the first Mandarin-translated book to win the award. It succeeds as a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel, garnering praise from all around the world. The travelogue is nothing but a heart-warming story about Taiwanese food and love between two women

Held on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, Taiwanese author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translator Lin King won the 2026 International Booker Prize for ‘Taiwan Travelogue’, becoming the first book translated from Mandarin Chinese to receive the prestigious literary award. 

International Booker Prize 2026 Winner: Taiwan Travelogue

The International Booker Prize was held at the Tate Modern on May 19. The annual prize, supported by Bukhman Philanthropies, honours the best works of long-form fiction or short story collections translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. The £50,000 prize money is divided equally between the author and translator. 

Winner Taiwan Travelogue by Taiwanese author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translator Lin King will also mark their 10th anniversary this year. The novel tells the saga of a Japanese writer, Aoyama Chizuko, and her Taiwanese interpreter, Chizuru, during a government-sponsored tour across the island. Through their evolving relationship, the book taps into themes of love, power, language, and colonialism.

Natasha Brown, chair of the 2026 judges, along with other members of the jury, praised the book, saying, “With sumptuous food writing, laugh-out-loud dialogue and metafictional twists, this novel was impossible to put down. Taiwan Travelogue pulls off an incredible double act: it succeeds as both a delicious romance and an incisive postcolonial novel.”