TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Asia Society held a ceremony for its first Baifang Schell Book at its New York headquarters on Monday, awarding "Taiwan Travelogue: A Novel" in the category of translated literature.
Author Yang Shuang-zi (楊双子) and translator Lin King (金翎) were recipients of the award, which included prize money of US$10,000 (NT$295,000), per CNA.
The award is named after Liu Bai-fang (劉白芳), the late wife of Orville Schell, director of Asia Society's Center on US-China Relations. Another book award in the nonfiction category went to Edward Wong's (黃安偉) "At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China."
A five-person panel comprised of authors and translators chose "Taiwan Travelogue: A Novel" for telling a compelling tale, which it described as "a bittersweet narrative of the bond between two women, nestled in an exploration of language, cuisine, history, and power."
Yang was unable to attend the award ceremony due to a previous commitment at the Seoul International Book Fair. Appearing by video, Yang said she wanted to use a creative and light-hearted way to address Taiwan's colonial period, and what legacies and injustices were left behind by successive colonial regimes.
She also hoped that many international audiences would be inspired to visit Taiwan after reading her book.
The translator of the novel, King, said food, romance, and humor were used to address serious themes such as empire, colonization, gender, and racial discrimination. She said this approach allowed readers to experience history through the subtlety of daily life, which at times is bittersweet and tragic.
