By Chiu Tsu-yin and Chao Yen-hsiang, CNA staff reporter and writer
“What made me most excited and panicked was not winning the award but having to give my acceptance speech,” said Yang Shuang-zi (楊双子).
On Nov. 20, Yang made history as the first Taiwanese author to win the U.S. National Book Award for Translated Literature with her novel “Taiwan Travelogue” (臺灣漫遊錄).
The National Book Awards are regarded as one of the world’s most prestigious literary honors, alongside the Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature, according to The New York Times.
In a phone interview after the ceremony, however, the 40-year-old Yang told CNA that the moment was less about personal achievement and more about the chance to speak for Taiwan on an international stage.
Although many people in Taiwan knew her as a writer, she said the international community needed to “hear our voices.”
“My words might not receive the same attention without this award,” Yang said.
Two student movements
Echoing her acceptance speech, during which she emphasized the importance of Taiwanese identity as a major focus of her writing, Yang said her experiences in two grassroots student movements significantly shaped her development as a writer.
Yang had just graduated from National Chung Hsing University when she participated in the 2008 Wild Strawberry Movement, a protest against the visit of Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), then chair of the China-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, to Taiwan.
A girl from a small village, Yang said her identity had initially aligned more closely with the Republic of China (ROC) and its claim to the Chinese mainland, currently governed by the Chinese Communist Party. However, she was confused and disturbed by the ban on displaying the ROC national flag during Chen’s visit.
“Isn’t the action something we take for granted? I didn’t understand why we couldn’t do it.” Yang said. “It made me question why I was so unfamiliar with the land where I grew up.”
That “enlightenment” prompted her to pursue graduate studies in Taiwan Literature after majoring in Chinese Literature as an undergraduate.
By the time of the Sunflower Movement in March 2014 — two years after earning her master’s degree — Yang said she had come to identify fully as Taiwanese.
The movement, which protested against the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement, cemented her resolve to contribute to Taiwan’s future.
“That experience made me realize that Taiwan has been facing threats from China, and it made me determined to write something for Taiwan from a perspective only I can see,” she said.
Yang visited many of the locations and ate many of the dishes mentioned in “Taiwan Travelogue” while she was writing it. She urged readers to explore Taiwan’s cultural and historical sites, in case fewer might remain accessible in the future.
Two shared names
For Yang, “writing something for Taiwan” means exploring what it means to be Taiwanese, which she achieves by reflecting on the nation’s history.
As she said in her acceptance speech: “I keep writing about the past to move toward a brighter future.”
Her earlier works, the 2017 novel “The Season When Flowers Bloom” (花開時節) and the 2018 short story collection “Blossoming Girls of Gorgeous Island” (花開少女華麗島), are set in early 20th-century Taiwan under Japanese rule — a setting that reappears in her award-winning “Taiwan Travelogue,” published in 2020.
The novel, structured around Taiwan’s railway system, follows a Japanese writer, Aoyama Chizuko (青山千鶴子), as she embarks on a culinary journey across the island in 1938 with her Taiwanese interpreter, Chizuru Wang (王千鶴).
When asked about the shared element of “千鶴” in the names of the two protagonists, Yang said it was a tribute to Yang Qian-he (楊千鶴, 1921-2011), Taiwan’s first female journalist.
Her earlier novel, “The Season When Flowers Bloom,” which centers on upper-class female students, also shares its Chinese title with Yang Qian-he’s novella.
“I admire [Yang Qian-he’s] dedication to writing about Taiwanese women. By writing about women during the Japanese colonial period, I aim to address contemporary Taiwanese identity, colonial history, and how Taiwan navigates between powerful regimes,” she said.
Yang said “Taiwan Travelogue” is the second part of her novel series, in which she explores women’s agency at that time.
Two-gether
Yang’s pen name, “Yang Shuang-zi,” is itself a shared identity. It belongs to both Yang Jo-tzu (楊若慈), who focuses on writing, and her late twin sister Yang Jo-hui (楊若暉), a history major and Japanese translator who died in 2015.
“I benefited immensely from my sister’s expertise when I began writing novels set during the period Taiwan was ruled by Japan,” Yang said, lauding her sister for being “far better than me” in history and Japanese.
Shortly before her passing, Yang Jo-hui told her sister: “You must not give up on life. Take me somewhere far away in the future.” Looking back, Yang believes her sister said this to dissuade her from contemplating suicide.
Now, having won an internationally renowned literary award, Yang said she wants to tell her late sister: “I’ve brought you to a faraway place now.”
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