Tucson: Lin King, the English translator of “Taiwan Travelogue” by Taiwanese author Yang Shuang-zi, and the novel’s editor, Yuka Igarashi, have been awarded a prestigious translation prize by the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA).

According to Focus Taiwan, the association announced the winners of the 2025 ALTA First Translation Prize during an awards ceremony held as part of its annual conference in Tucson, Arizona. This accolade is the latest in a series of honors for King’s translation of “Taiwan Travelogue” in the United States, complementing her previous awards from the U.S. National Book Award for Translated Literature and Asia Society’s Baifang Schell Book Prize.

ALTA praised “Taiwan Travelogue,” published by Graywolf Press, as an intricate exploration of language, power, and queer desire. The novel is described as a “complex, multivocal meditation” and is notable for its fictional translation within a translation-a memoir by a Japanese writer in 1930s colonial Taiwan, translated into Mandarin Chinese, and then into English by King.

King, an accomplished linguist fluent in Mandarin, Japanese, and English, was commended by ALTA for her meticulous handling of the novel’s diverse linguistic and historical nuances, maintaining its intricate layers while effectively translating its prose and intellectual depth into English. ALTA lauded her work as a “rare and remarkable act of translation.”

In addition to her work as a translator, King expressed her aspirations to publish her debut English-language work next year, following her receipt of the Award for Outstanding Translated Literature from Chinese Language at the Baifang Schell Book Prize in June.

Igarashi, who is an executive editor at Graywolf Press, played a crucial role in the editing process, as highlighted by the association.

The ALTA First Translation Prize is designed to celebrate the achievements of emerging literary translators and their editors, accepting submissions across all genres. It honors a debut literary translation from any language into English, provided it was published in the previous year. The judges for the 2025 awards were C.J. Evans, David M. Smith, and Jiyoon Lee.