atCentral: Yáng Shuāng-zǐ — "Taiwan Travelogue"

Join us in welcoming author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ who will be in discussion with Lin King, translator of Yáng's novel Taiwan Travelogue, winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

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.

Lecture Title: Where Did They Go? What Did They Eat? The Fictional Craft of Taiwan Travelogue

How can a Taiwanese novel incorporate historical materials from its decades under Japanese colonial rule? How does two women’s travelogue become a work of fiction? This talk will examine Taiwan Travelogue’s use of a “Shōwa Taiwan Railway Gourmet Tour” as its storytelling framework, covering the novel’s early inspirations, conceptual development, research, fieldwork, archives-building, story conception, and writing process.

講座主題：她們去哪裡？ 她們吃什麼？ 《臺灣漫遊錄》的虛構⼯程

內容說明：日治時期史料文獻如何作為小說創作素材？歷史中的女性旅行如何

成為虛構小說的主題？以《臺灣漫遊錄》為例，說明這趟「昭和台灣縱貫鐵道

美食之旅」從發想、構思、資料蒐集、實地考察、條理式整理、設定架構到書

寫的過程。

The Author: Yáng Shuang-zi

Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, whose real name is Yang Jo-Tzu, is a versatile writer from Taichung, Taiwan. She dabbles in various forms, including fiction, essays, manga scripts, and literary criticism.

In 2020, she was named one of the Rising Stars of the Twenty-First Century by Wenshun magazine and was selected by Unitas magazine as one of the Twenty MostPromising Young Novelists. In 2021, she became the youngest-ever nominee for the United Daily News Literary Award. In 2022, Wenshun magazine again recognized Yáng as a Representative Author of Twenty-First Century Taiwanese Popular Literature.

Her notable works include the novel The Season When Flowers Bloom (花開時節) in 2017, Taiwan Travelogue (臺灣漫遊錄) in 2020, No. 1, Siwei Street (四維街一號) in 2023 and the essay Neighbors with Chang Jih-Hsing(我家住在張日興隔壁) in 2020. Taiwan Travelogue received Taiwan’s highest literary honor—the Golden Tripod Award. In 2024, its Japanese translation won Japan’s Best Translation Award, while the English version earned the 75th Annual National Book Award for Translated Literature in the United States.

The Translator: Lin King

Lin King is a writer and translator based in Taipei and New York. Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Boston Review, and Joyland among others, and has received the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She is the translator of The Boy from Clearwater by Yu Pei-Yun and Zhou Jian-Xin, as well as Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, winner of the 2024 National Book Award in Translated Literature.

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