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Taiwan’s famous author Yang Shuang-zǐ and her translator Lin King have been awarded the International Booker Prize for their book ‘Taiwan Travelogue’. This is happy news because this book has become the first book translated from Mandarin Chinese language into English to win this award. The award event was organized at the famous Tate Modern gallery in London.

About the author

Yang Shuang-ji was born in the year 1984. With this award, she has become the first Taiwanese writer to win the International Booker Award. Her stories generally present Taiwan’s culture, history, women’s experiences and local life in a brilliant manner. His translator Lin King is Taiwanese-American. He has translated the original Chinese book into English so beautifully that the reader group all over the world is able to understand it easily.

Story and features of the book

The story of ‘Taiwan Travelogue’ is based on Taiwan of the 1930s. At that time Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule. The book tells about the love story between two women. Also, the traditional and local food of Taiwan has been described in a beautiful and interesting manner in the book. The writer has made food and travel an important part of the story. Yang Shuang-ji says that the main basis of this book is food and travel. These two things completely changed his life in two ways. Yang Shuang-ji said, ‘This reduced my savings and increased my weight. This book was first published in Mandarin Chinese language in the year 2020. After this, it has also received Taiwan’s biggest literary honor ‘Golden tripod award’.

Why is this a special achievement?

This award is also special because never before has any book translated from Mandarin Chinese language won this honour. With this victory, Taiwan’s literary world and Chinese language stories are now gaining a strong place on the global platform. Readers are finding this book not only as a love story but also as a beautiful medium to understand Taiwan’s history, culture, food and social situation of that era.

What is the International Booker Award?

The International Booker Award is given to the best fiction novels from around the world written in any language. But English translation should be available and the book should be published in UK or Ireland. This award was started in the year 2005. The first award was given to Albanian author Ismail Kadare. This award is given once every two years. The winning author and translator receive an amount of 50,000 pounds (approximately Rs 65 lakh). The purpose of this award is to honor those authors and translators who present stories of different languages ​​and cultures all over the world.