“Travels in Taiwan” author Yang Shuang-zi told AFP she hopes her Booker International Prize-winning novel can one day be read in China and facilitate dialogue about “the future Taiwanese people want”.
On Tuesday, Yang, 41, was done the first Taiwanese author to win the prestigious award which celebrates works translated into English, along with translator Lin King, 32.
The hilarious novel, set in 1930s Japanese-controlled Taiwan, is a translation of a rediscovered Japanese travel memoir written by fictional writer Aoyama Chizuko.
It traces Chizuko’s wonderful travels and gastronomic adventures through the colonial outpost, and the relationship she develops with her Taiwanese translator, the reserved Chizuru.
Although historical fiction, the novel investigates themes of power imbalance and cultural erasure that the author says are relevant to present-day Taiwan, which is claimed by China as part of its territory.
“I have often felt uneasy inside, wondering if literature is too slow,” Yang admitted when asked about Taiwan’s future.
“I often worry, I often feel that maybe I should make political statements, or take some kind of action, engage in other forms of activism,” she told AFP in an interview on Wednesday.
“But in reality, as a novelist, I have decided to believe in literature, to believe in the power of literature.”
First published in Mandarin in 2020, the book has won acclaim in Taiwan but has not been published in China.
“If this book can, in one way or another, enter China and be read by Chinese readers, I think we would have an opportunity for dialogue and communication,” Yang said.
This would “allow more Chinese to understand what kind of future Taiwanese people want – which is not the same as what many in China imagine.”
‘Uphill battle’
Taiwan Travelogue is the first book published in any Chinese language to win the Booker International Prize.
“I hope it can serve as an example in the Chinese-speaking world, showing that in a free and democratic country like Taiwan — a place where I can come out as a queer person — we can do this together,” Yang said.
Unlike writing from former British colonies such as Hong Kong, King says Taiwanese literature and its colonial past are less well known in the Anglophone world.
“For Taiwan, it’s always been an uphill battle to be translated into English, published, and recognized. So this is definitely very important to me personally,” King said.
The victory has sparked an outpouring of emotion from Taiwanese readers on social media, who see it as an important moment for the self-ruled island usually in the news about tensions with China.
But Yang says the universal themes she discusses in the book—and her impressive descriptions of Taiwanese delicacies—may also have touched readers.
“I’ve packed a lot of elements that I personally love into this work – be it travel, railways, food or female friendship. Because I love these things so much, I hope that my enthusiasm can infect my readers as well.”
For Yang, who dedicated this book featuring larger-than-life female characters to her late sister, it’s as much about preserving Taiwan’s past as it is about fighting for its future.
“Sometimes history disappears briefly; it becomes empty. But as long as there are descendants willing to search, I believe history can be finished,” Yang said.
This book is “a call to readers all over the world: we can go and retrieve the stories that were once lost, the voices of our mothers, the voices of our grandmothers. We must reclaim them ourselves.”
