Taiwan Travelogue Audiobook By Yang Shuang-Zi, Lin King - translator cover art

Taiwan Travelogue

A Novel

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Taiwan Travelogue

By: Yang Shuang-Zi, Lin King - translator
Narrated by: Sarah Skaer
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Buy for $20.73

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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 its authentic cuisine.

Soon a Taiwanese woman—who is younger than she is, and who shares the characters of her name—is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. Chizuru arranges Chizuko's travels and proves to be an exceptional cook. 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 reveals how power dynamics inflect our most intimate relationships.

©2020 SpringHill Publishing; English translation copyright 2024 by Lin King (P)2025 Tantor Media

Accolades & Awards

National Book Award
2024
Asian Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction National Book Award World Literature China

Critic reviews

WINNER OF THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE
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By the late part one may have discovered for oneself the limitations of the narrator as well as the many virtues of the translator. I like foods, a major theme of the book, but these foods are almost all unfamiliar. Still there is poetry and beauty in the writing, especially at the end.

Slow start and hard to see destination, but excellent ending

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The narrator, Sarah Skaer, speaks in an annoying, breathy voice that is probably supposed to sound like a sweet, gentle Japanese girl but comes off as babytalk. Ten hours of babytalk.

Ten Hours of Babytalk

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Too much food & food prep for my reading enjoyment, maybe because I have medical challenge that limits food choices.

Cultural differences show the importance & learning experience of travels.

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Though there's some interesting history and detailed descriptions of various distinctive local foods, I found it extremely difficult listening to the "sing-song" almost childish narration.

Grating Narration

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While the book itself is a masterpiece, unfortunately the Audible listing gives no indication that the audiobook version is heavily abridged. As noted in the book description, the novel is "disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer." In the complete print version of the book, this is clearly laid out in a (fictional) preface and afterword by the (fictional) "translator" and "editors" of the novel, which is presented as having been (again, fictionally) "published" in 1954 by the protagonist and narrator, Ayoyama Chikuzo. These metafictional devices are absolutely essential to understanding the novel as a whole, but this material has been entirely omitted from the audiobook. The audiobook has therefore been truncated to an extent that significantly alters the impact of the book. It almost seems like a case of false advertising (!), since there is no indication on the Audible website that such an abridgement has taken place. Again, the book itself is absolutely wonderful--I cannot recommend it enough--but only in the complete print version, not this abridged audiobook. I will be asking Audible for a refund.

Audiobook heavily abridged--do not buy

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