There’s a sharp clarity to the world of the National Book Award-winning novel Taiwan Travelogue, one that keeps detailed record of each bowl of bí-thai-bàk and kam-á-bit eaten, each folk tale told and dice game played.

The rich footnotes also add to this clarity: with cultural and culinary notes from both the author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and the English-language translator Lin King, we’re guided across each page with a precise, meticulous academic curiosity that reveals the immense amounts of research involved in writing and translating this novel. 

Footnotes are generally frowned upon in US anglophone spheres of literary translation, but Yáng’s novel in Mandarin Chinese—which masquerades as a translation of a Japanese text—contains detailed footnotes, and King doesn’t shy away from adding some of her own, too. From addendums about conventions of romanization to historical clarifications, Yáng and King’s footnotes illuminate the rich and complex world of Taiwan in 1938. Their paratextual marginalia become part of the tale, and the labor of research and translation surfaces as a clearly visible part of the novel, too. This goes beyond just footnotes: surrounding the novel itself are layers of introductions, afterwords, and notes—(sometimes fictional) paratextual materials that, like the fractured mirrors of a kaleidoscope, reframe and recast our understandings of Taiwan Travelogue.

At the end of this kaleidoscope is a genuine intimacy between the main characters, tinted by the power imbalances of colonialism. In Taiwan Travelogue, Japanese novelist Aoyama Chizuko documents her travels to Taiwan, then a crucial element in imperial Japan’s Southern Expansion Policy. Throughout her stay, she is guided by an interpreter, Ông Tshian-hȯh, who she affectionately nicknames “Chi-chan.” Aoyama and Chi-chan form a close relationship that goes beyond their author-interpreter duties, and the attraction between them is palpable as Aoyama describes the “sparkling darkness” of Chi-chan’s eyes, for instance, or the fact that “had arrows showered down on [them] instead of flowers, [she] would have shielded Chi-chan’s body with [her] own.” 

In a conversation towards the end of the novel, Aoyama states that the Japanese empire is the one who “[gives] rise to some wonderful things on this Southern Island [of Taiwan…] Like polishing a raw stone into a gleaming jade.” It is only later that she realizes, in her capacity as a curious travel writer, she “had never once truly understood the Island, nor held true love or care for the Island." Similarly, Aoyama’s attempts to care for and protect Ông may be well-intentioned, but in the end only reveal the massive power imbalance between her as an imperial Mainlander citizen and Ông as a colonial Islander subject. Indeed, as the fictional historian Hiyoshi Sagako reminds us in the introduction to the novel, “Aoyama Chizuko is one of the colonizers within the story.”

While it doesn’t explicitly condemn policies of colonialism or those who profit off of it, Taiwan Travelogue portrays nuanced and genuine bonds between characters whose lives are profoundly affected by imperialism. Yáng’s bold and engaging writing, through King’s precise and sensitive translation, gives Taiwanese history a global anglophone platform, refreshing our understanding of the complex and deeply personal intricacies of language, history, and power.