As we enter our fifth year we are giving ourselves permission to get a little weird with our selections. This isn't SF, but it is full of metatextual trickery, so we say close enough; and there are lesbians.

A historical novel masquerading as a contemporary travelogue, translated fictionally from Japanese to Mandarin and then genuinely from Mandarin to English.  It's about food and empire and Taiwan, which has had a lot of both.