2026 Winner: Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ
Set in 1930s Japan-controlled Taiwan, Taiwan Travelogue follows a fictional Japanese writer on a gastronomic adventure across the colonial island, and the intimate relationship she develops with her Taiwanese interpreter. Judges called it "captivating and slyly sophisticated" — a book that pulls off the double feat of being both a sweeping romance and an incisive postcolonial novel. It's the first novel written in Mandarin Chinese to win the International Booker Prize, with Taiwanese-American translator Lin King sharing the historic win — and the £50,000 prize.
