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國際時事跟讀 Ep. L212: Taiwan's Literary Breakthrough on the World Stage
Highlights 主題摘要
- Taiwan Travelogue won the 2026 International Booker Prize — the first Mandarin Chinese novel to claim the award in its ten-year history.
- The novel's form — a fictional translation layered with footnotes and multiple romanisation systems — pushed translator Lin King to break conventional translation rules.
- Two small independent publishers took a risk on an experimental work, showing that literary outsiders often champion the most groundbreaking voices.
On the evening of May 19, in the Turbine Hall at London's Tate Modern, Taiwan's literary world claimed a milestone it had long been working toward. Yáng Shuāng-zǐ's Taiwan Travelogue, translated into English by Lin King, was awarded the 2026 International Booker Prize — the first Mandarin Chinese novel ever to win the honour, and the first victory for Taiwanese and Taiwanese-American writers in the award's ten-year history. Jury chair Natasha Brown described the book as "captivating, slyly sophisticated," praising its ability to succeed as both a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel. The £50,000 prize was split equally between author and translator.
5月19日夜晚，在倫敦泰特現代美術館渦輪大廳，臺灣文學迎來期盼已久的歷史時刻。由金翎翻譯的楊双子小說《臺灣漫遊錄》英譯本，榮獲2026年國際布克獎，成為首部獲此殊榮的華語小說，楊双子與金翎也成為該獎創立十年來首位獲獎的臺灣與臺裔美國人。評審團主席娜塔夏．布朗盛讚這部作品「迷人且暗藏機鋒」，直言它同時是一部動人的愛情故事，也是一部犀利的後殖民小說。五萬英鎊獎金由作者與譯者平分。
Taiwan Travelogue is structured as a fictional Mandarin translation of a rediscovered 1938 Japanese travel memoir, layering colonialism, language politics, and culinary desire into a single narrative. Set in Japanese-controlled Taiwan, the novel follows a Japanese writer and her Taiwanese interpreter as their relationship deepens over an island-wide food tour. This intricate metafictional conceit — a novel about translation, itself requiring translation — placed extraordinary demands on Lin King. Rather than adopting the conventional ideal of an "invisible" translator, King took a maximalist approach to visibility: the English edition includes translator footnotes, a preface, an afterword, and three distinct romanisation systems for the same written Chinese characters, deliberately refusing to simplify Taiwan's multilingual colonial reality.
《臺灣漫遊錄》以偽託1938年日文遊記的形式寫成，將殖民歷史、語言政治與飲食慾望交織於同一敘事之中。故事以日治時期的臺灣為背景，描繪一位日本女作家與她的臺灣女通譯在環島美食之旅中逐漸加深的情誼。這部後設小說本身即是一部關於翻譯的作品，卻同樣需要翻譯（才能推往國際），對英譯者金翎而言挑戰格外艱鉅。她一反「譯者隱形」的慣例，選擇以極繁主義的方式讓譯者現身：英譯本設有譯者注腳、序言與後記，並為相同的漢字保留三套不同的羅馬拼音系統，刻意拒絕將臺灣多語言、多族群的殖民現實簡化處理。
The path to publication was itself a story of calculated risk-taking by outsider institutions. The American edition was released in 2024 by Graywolf Press, a Minnesota-based non-profit literary publisher, edited by Japanese-American editor Yuka Igarashi, who worked closely with King on the English edition's complex footnote apparatus. The UK edition, released in March 2026 by Sheffield-based And Other Stories — a subscription-funded social enterprise — came after an earlier UK publisher refused to place the translator's name on the cover. Since winning the prize, the English edition has sold over 10,000 copies in the UK alone, while the original Mandarin edition has sold out across Taiwan and gone into emergency reprints.
出版之路本身也是一場以小博大的冒險。美國版由明尼蘇達州非營利文學出版社 Graywolf Press 於2024年出版，日裔美國編輯 Yuka Igarashi 與金翎密切合作，共同完善英譯本複雜的注腳體系。英國版由謝菲爾德的社會企業出版社 And Other Stories 於2026年3月出版，此前另一家英國出版社因拒絕將譯者姓名列於封面，金翎便轉而尋求他處合作。獲獎後，英國版銷量已突破一萬冊，臺灣原著則迅速售罄，出版社緊急加印。
The prize has reverberated well beyond Britain. The Japanese translation had already shattered records for Taiwanese literature in Japan, selling over 23,000 copies, and briefly topped Amazon Japan's literary rankings following the announcement. Rights enquiries have since arrived from Sweden, Hungary, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Telugu-speaking market in India, with German and Italian editions scheduled for 2027. In her acceptance speech, Lin King framed the win in explicitly political terms, pledging to translate only Taiwanese works until the island's sovereignty is no longer treated as "a provocation or a joke" in the English-speaking world. Yáng, in turn, declared that literature, however quiet and slow, never abandons its conviction — and never stops reaching across borders.
這座獎項的震盪遠不止於英國。日文版早已刷新臺灣文學在日本的銷售紀錄，發行量逾2.3萬冊，獲獎消息傳出後更一度登上日本亞馬遜文學類榜首。瑞典、匈牙利、印尼、越南及印度泰盧固語等版本的版權洽談相繼展開，德文版與義大利文版預定2027年出版。金翎在致詞中明確表態，她將持續只翻譯臺灣作品，直到臺灣主權在英語世界不再被當作「挑釁或笑話」。楊双子則說，文學看似緩慢，卻始終堅定前行，從未放棄信念，也從未停止跨越邊界。
Keyword Drills 關鍵字
- Postcolonial [adjective, relating to the cultural, political, or social legacy of former colonial rule]: The author took a postcolonial view of her country's history.
- Metafictional [adjective, describing fiction that self-consciously draws attention to its own nature as a constructed narrative]: The metafictional novel reminded readers they were reading a story.
- Maximalist [adjective, using elaborate, complex, or layered detail as a deliberate artistic choice]: The maximalist design packed every inch with colour and texture.
- Reverberate [verb, to have a lasting or wide-reaching effect]: The election result reverberated across the entire region.
- Rights enquiries [noun phrase, formal expressions of interest from publishers seeking to acquire permission to publish a work in a new language or territory]: Rights enquiries flooded in after the award was announced.
Reference article:
1. https://www.twreporter.org/a/taiwan-travelogue-from-taiwan-to-the-world
2. https://www.moc.gov.tw/News_Content.aspx?n=105&s=255699