Pseudotranslation is not a new literary form (Don Quixote, 1605/15, is a notable example), though the term itself is fairly young. One such current novel that’s popular in my library is translator Jennifer Croft’s 2024 mystery, The Extinction of Irena Rey. I very much hope that its readers will move on to Yáng Shuāng-Zǐ’s equally tricksy and deliciously subtle Taiwan Travelogue, translated from Mandarin Chinese into English by Lin King and published in the United States in 2024 by Graywolf Press. Eleanor Duggan has written about many of its charms already on this blog, but I love the book too much not to take advantage of the opportunity presented by #WITMonth to offer my own take.

Taiwanese author Yáng’s novel, published in Taiwan in 2020, purports to be the fictionalized first-person account of (fictional) Japanese author Aoyama Chizuko’s 1938 Taiwan sojourn, when the island was a Japanese colony. The text before English-speaking readers is King’s 2024 translation of the fictive novel’s second Mandarin edition, which dates from 2020; Aoyama’s “original,” Japanese text was published, readers are told in one of the book’s many afterwords, in 1945.

A charismatic, larger-than-life figure, Aoyama is accompanied for most of the novel by her local interpreter, a ferociously accomplished woman named Ông Tshian-ho̍h in her mother tongue, Hokkien Taiwanese, but called Ō Chizuro in Japanese. Aoyama quickly begins to refer to Ông with the affectionate diminutive Chi-chan, first only in her head and then to her interpreter’s face, even as Ông consistently and properly addresses her employer as Aoyama-san. This is just one indicator of the power dynamic that exists between the two women, felt acutely and constantly by Ông but only occasionally by Aoyama. Since the story is narrated in the first person by Aoyama, readers need to pay close attention to her reportage of Ông’s actions and reactions to speculate as to what might be going on behind what Aoyama calls Ông’s Noh mask (this cultural imposition is another imperial liberty she takes).

Aoyama is in Taiwan on an extended book tour sponsored by the colonial government and a local Japanese women’s group, but she is proud to have refused an earlier offer by a Japanese publisher to write “articles promoting the Southern Expansion”—she may enjoy all the prerogatives of colonialism, but at least she draws the line at writing propaganda. For all that Aoyama is largely clueless to the power imbalance she benefits from, she is also enormously likable, drawing in both readers and, reluctantly, Ông. Aoyama’s astonishing appetite and fondness for “Islander” cuisine is a source of humor, a celebration of the cuisine in its own right, and a none-too-subtle symbol of colonial exploitation. It also becomes a running joke between Aoyama and Ông, who reveals the toll satisfying Aoyama’s hunger takes on her only to readers in one of the afterwords.

Indeed, Aoyama’s account is appended by five notes: one by Aoyama’s daughter, who republishes her mother’s novel in Japanese in 1970; another by Ông herself under her Mandarin name, Wáng Chiēn-hò, in her note to her 1977 translation of the travelogue into Mandarin; Ông’s daughter’s editorial note to her mother’s translation; Yáng’s note to her new Mandarin translation; and—the only genuine note in the batch—King’s. This accretion of notes both suggestively fills in some of the gaps in Aoyama’s narrative and acts as its own oblique commentary on the act of translation.

Plenty of people have already fallen for Taiwan Travelogue. Its original edition won Taiwan’s Golden Tripod Award, and Yuko Miura’s translation won an award in Japan. The U.S. National Book Awards followed suit in 2024. It’s well worth its accolades. Taking on both colonialism and love, and all their complexities, Taiwan Travelogue gives readers not just food but a feast for thought.

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Vicky Smith was the young readers’ editor of Kirkus Reviews for 13 years, where covering books in translation was one of her priorities, before becoming access services director at Portland (Maine) Public Library.