Former WEAI Staffer Lin King Continues Awards Sweep for ‘Taiwan Travelogue’
The Weatherhead East Asian Institute salutes writer and translator Lin King, former Student Affairs Coordinator, on winning the inaugural Baifang Schell Book Prize for her translation of Taiwan Travelogue, a Mandarin-language novel by the Taiwanese author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ.
King’s award, in the Outstanding Translated Literature from Chinese Language category, is the second major honor Taiwan Travelogue has garnered since being published last fall by Graywolf Press. In November, it received the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature.
Meanwhile, earlier in 2024 King’s translation of the graphic novel The Boy From Clearwater, Book 2 won the Freeman Book Award from the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia, and in 2023 her translation of The Boy from Clearwater, Book 1 also won the Freeman Book Award.
Announced earlier this year by the China Books Review, the Baifang Schell Book Prize awards $10,000 to “exceptional books on or from China and the greater Sinophone world” in nonfiction and translated literature. This year’s Book Prize jury was chaired by Weatherhead faculty member Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science and a former director of the Institute.
At the June 16 awards ceremony at Asia Society New York, King accepted the award and was joined in conversation by jury member Yangyang Cheng, a Research Scholar at the Paul Tsai Center at Yale University. Professor Nathan led a conversation with New York Times correspondent Edward Wong, who won in the nonfiction category for his family memoir At the Edge of Empire (Viking, 2024).
Asked for comment after the awards ceremony, King said, “Taiwan Travelogue is a metatextual, historical novel in translation, so while I hoped the English edition would resonate with readers interested in Taiwan—or in colonialism, food, translation—I never imagined that it would receive so much attention.
“It's deeply gratifying to see how translation can bring new life to and grow the legacy of a book,” she added, noting that back in Taiwan, Yáng Shuāng-zǐ’s novel has returned to the bestseller list and remained there for half a year despite having been published in 2020.
“It's also personally gratifying for me, as someone from Taiwan, to see its history and literature discussed on so many English-language platforms.”
How does a literary translator follow up on such a notable success? King reported that several projects are currently keeping her busy.
“In terms of what I'm working on, Yang Shuang-Zi's new novel No. 1, Siwei Street (tentative title) is currently in the pipeline. I am also translating Taiwanese writer Lee Chia-Ying's A Perfect Day to Put Your Head in the Oven, which will come out with Doubleday UK and Riverhead US. I have been working with writers Kevin Chen (Chen Shih-Hung) and Chen Xue, both from Taiwan, and with the Books From Taiwan project on translating graphic novels, hosted by Locus Publishing.”
And, last but far from least: “My own novel, which is written in English, will be published in the U.S. sometime in the soon-to-be-announced future.”
All of us at WEAI congratulate our former colleague and look forward to reading more of her work in the months to come.
Watch the complete Baifang Schell Book Prize awards ceremony below: