Taipei: At a ceremony for the inaugural Baifang Schell Book Prize, translator Lin King called on writers and readers to recognize the value of Taiwan’s narratives. After receiving the Award for Outstanding Translated Literature from Chinese Language, King emphasized, “Don’t think Taiwan is too small, or that no one wants to read our stories … That’s a dangerous mindset. Our stories have weight.”

According to Focus Taiwan, King accepted the US$10,000 award on behalf of herself and author Yang Shuang-zi for “Taiwan Travelogue,” the English translation of Yang’s novel. The novel explores themes of friendship, desire, and life during Japan’s colonial rule of Taiwan, told through the relationship between a Taiwanese and a Japanese woman.

The jury commended the book as “a masterful novel that combines a sly literary conceit with the lush pleasures of food writing, upended by a deepening experience of colonialism and its effects on friendship and love.” They also lauded Yang for her “narrative gifts” that “reveal layer after layer behind what appears to be a mere travelogue,” while praising King for her “artful translation” that “allows tension to swell beneath the surface.”

“Taiwan Travelogue” has garnered other international acclaim, winning the U.S. National Book Award for Translated Literature and the Best Translation Award in Japan last year. King, fluent in Mandarin, Japanese, and English, expressed her intention to continue writing and hopes to publish her debut English-language work next year.

The Baifang Schell Book Prize, launched by the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, aims to recognize outstanding literary translations from the Chinese-speaking world.