Yáng Shuāng-zǐ discusses her novel “Taiwan Travelogue,” winner of a 2024 National Book Award.
Join us in welcoming author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature, with interpreter Jean Lin and moderator Cecily Sailer.
Co-presented with the Taiwan Academy of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Houston, the event will be in The Gallery at Austin Central Library.
A book-signing follows with books available for purchase from Alienated Majesty Books. Taiwanese snacks will be served.
Taiwan Travelogue
Presented as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, Taiwan Travelogue, is a poignant tale of love between two women, intertwined with a skillful examination of language, history, and power. Yáng guides readers on a metafictional journey through the cuisines, customs, and landmarks of Taiwan during Japanese rule.
May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She’s been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs to experience real island life and to taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear. Soon a Taiwanese woman ― who is younger even than she is, and who shares the characters of her name ― is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. The charming, erudite, meticulous Chizuru arranges Chizuko’s travels all over the Land of the South and also proves to be an exceptional cook. Over scenic train rides and braised pork rice, lively banter and winter melon tea, Chizuko grows infatuated with her companion and intent on drawing her closer. But something causes Chizuru to keep her distance. It’s only after a heartbreaking separation that Chizuko begins to grasp what the “something” is.
Taiwan Travelogue unburies lost colonial histories and deftly reveals how power dynamics inflect our most intimate relationships.
Yáng Shuāng-zǐ is a writer of fiction, essays, manga and video game scripts, and literary criticism. Her novel Taiwan Travelogue, won Asia Society’s inaugural Baifang Schell Book Prize. It has been published or is forthcoming in numerous languages including Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Ukrainian, Italian, German, Dutch, Danish, and Greek.
