Thanks to Taiwan Travelogue (written by Yang Shuangzi and translated by Lin King), winner of the 2026 International Booker Prize, suddenly everybody is paying attention to translated books from Taiwan. Here are some of the books I recently discovered.
1. Green Island: A Novel (2016) by Shawna Yang Ryan (@manuscriptdoula) which won the 2017 American Book Award. I have had this book under my radar for a while. It can be a good companion to the renowned Taiwanese movie A City of Sadness (1989), which I reviewed here.
2. Yan, Volume 1, 2 & 3, comic book series by Chang Sheng (@changsheng1221), with Volume 1 & 2 (2025, 2026) having been nominated for the prestigious Eisner Awards – Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Asia. Chang Sheng himself has also been nominated for the Best Writer/Artist. Volume 2 was published in January and Volume 3 will be published in September this year. The series is translated by Vanessa Liu and published by Titan Manga (@titanmangahq).
(To be continued…)
Voices under the Sun 陽光下的聲音 