Transnational Series: Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and Lin King with Ha Jin

Join the for an in-store event with Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and Lin King to discuss and honor the release of . They will be in conversation with writer Ha Jin.

A bittersweet story of love between two women, nested in an artful exploration of language, history, and power. Winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

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.

Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, this novel was a sensation on its first publication in Mandarin Chinese in 2020 and won Taiwan’s highest literary honor, the Golden Tripod Award. Taiwan Travelogue unburies lost colonial histories and deftly reveals how power dynamics inflect our most intimate relationships.

Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, whose real name is Yang Jo-Tzu, is a versatile writer of fiction, essays, manga and video game 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 Most Promising 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. 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.

Translator 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. Her translations from Mandarin and Japanese into English include the graphic novel series The Boy from Clearwater by Yu Pei-Yun and Zhou Jian-Xin, the chapbook Cloud Labour by Sabrina Huang Li-Chun, and the novel Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, which won the 2024 National Book Award in Translated Literature. Forthcoming publications include A Perfect Day to Put Your Head in the Oven by Lee Chia-Ying.

Moderator Ha Jin was a teenager when China entered the Cultural Revolution. His novel Waiting, which won the National Book Award, the PEN/ Faulkner, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, was based on his experiences during his five-year service in the Red Army. He is the author of ten novels, four story collections, four volumes of poetry, a book of essays, and a biography of Li Bai. Ha Jin is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in English and Creative Writing at Boston University, and he has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His writing has been translated into more than thirty languages.

The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith

The Transnational Series focuses on stories of migration, the intersection of politics and literature, and works in translation and is supported by the independent bookstore Brookline Booksmith. Subscribe to the Transnational Series newsletter for information on upcoming events, book recommendations, and more.

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Livestream!

Barring technical difficulty, this event will be livestreamed to our store YouTube channel.

Event Accesibility

This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email dGlja2V0aW5nIHwgYnJvb2tsaW5lYm9va3NtaXRoICEgY29t as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs!

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Please note that any Brookline Booksmith in-person event may be canceled by the bookstore, publisher, or author based on concerns about health and safety around the time of the event. Wherever possible, any in-person appearance canceled due to COVID will be moved to the Brookline Booksmith Zoom as a webinar at the same date and time, and all tickets and registrations will be transferred to the online event. Book signing details may change. Refunds may be requested in the case of a virtual pivot or event cancelation.

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