* LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE * A bittersweet story
of love between two women nested in an artful exploration of language history and power
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 as much of its authentic cuisine as her
famously monstrous appetite can bear. Soon a Taiwanese woman-who is younger even than she is
and who shares the characters of her name-is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come
true. The charming erudite meticulous Chizuru arranges Chizuko's travels all over the Land of
the South and also proves to be an exceptional cook. Over scenic train rides and braised pork
rice lively banter and winter melon tea 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
deftly reveals how power dynamics inflect our most intimate relationships.
