TAIPEI, Taiwan — The novel, Taiwan Travelogue, which explores a journey across the island of Taiwan when it was occupied by Japan has stirred up questions about the island’s identity and Taiwan’s relationships with both its former colonizer Japan, and China.

Written by Taiwanese author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated into English by Taiwanese and American translator Lin King, the book won global acclaim after it took home the 2026 International Booker Prize for the best work of fiction translated into English.

Set in the 1930s, the story follows a young Japanese writer, Aoyama Chizuko, as she travels across the island with her Taiwanese translator Ō Chizuru.
Through the power imbalance between the two women, their budding romance, and interactions with Taiwanese and Japanese characters alike, the novel raises questions about how Taiwan views its colonial legacy.

In China, the book has been accused of contributing to what some see as Taiwan glossing over Japan’s colonial-era atrocities.

NPR recently spoke with both author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translator Lin King about Taiwan, Japan’s colonial era and the pressure from China, which claims Taiwan.

The following exchanges have been edited for length and clarity. Interviews with the author and translator were conducted separately. 

Interview with Yáng Shuāng-zǐ:

Author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ outside her favorite restaurant in Taipei.

Jan Camenzind Broomby/NPR

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Jan Camenzind Broomby/NPR

NPR: Taiwan’s view of Japan is very different from Korea and China’s, which were also colonized by Japan. Where does this difference come from? 

Yáng Shuāng-zǐ: This paradoxical situation is why I wanted to write the novel. During Japan’s colonial period, we experienced suffering and oppression, but that period was also an important part of Taiwan’s modernization. So, people’s emotions are complicated.

It’s made even more complicated by the fact that after the war, Japan left and the Republic of China came and very quickly adopted the former colonizer’s methods of ruling people. They basically accomplished what the Japanese colonial government had spent 50 years doing, for example, replacing the language. That created a big rupture, so in this context, it’s understandable why some people in retrospect ended up thinking Japan wasn’t so bad.