Which book won the 2026 International Booker Prize ?

The 2026 International Booker Prize was awarded to Taiwan Travelogue, written by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King. Announced on May 19, 2026, at London's Tate Modern, it made history as the first book originally written in Mandarin to win the prize. The novel, set in 1938 during the Japanese colonial period in Taiwan, is a fictional travel memoir exploring themes of colonialism, power, and a cross-cultural relationship between a Japanese writer and a Taiwanese translator. The £50,000 prize money was split equally between the author and the translator. Other options are incorrect: Transcription by Ben Lerner won the 2026 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction; Shadow Ticket is a 2025 novel by Thomas Pynchon; and Vigil is a 2026 English-language novel by George Saunders. The International Booker Prize specifically honors fiction translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland.