Taiwan Travelogue by Thuang-Zi Wang, Translated by Lin King

Thursday, June 11, 2026--San Antonio

Taiwan Travelogue by Thuang-Zi Wang and translated by Lin King is a book with an interesting history.  It is based on a year of traveling and speaking in Taiwan in 1939  when it was a Japanese territory and the original author, a Japanese mainland woman kept detail journals of her experiences.  It was first published in the 1950s.  It has had several publications over the years which have been in Japanese, Mandarin, and now in English.  The English version won the National Book Award last year for best translated literature and it won the Booker International Prize this year.  Because it was based on the journals and because the author of those was fascinated by trying local foods, there are lots of details related to multiple-course meals included--so many that I started rushing through them.  The main story is about the slowly developing relationship between the Japanese mainland author and her assigned island-born Japanese female translator and guide of the same age and how the cultural structure of how Japanese people must interact and respond to each other in general and also between class levels created problems with acceptance and understanding between the two women.  There are many footnotes to explain types of foods and name differences between Mandarin and Japanese and between place names of the time and those of today so the reader can better follow the story if they want to go to a present-day map or have been to Taiwan and traveled around the country as I have done.  I enjoyed the story, but my rating is 3 1/2 stars out of 5 because of so many food details that take up maybe 30% or more of the text.