Indelible City : Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong

2023 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards shortlistA NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEARAn award-winning journalist & longtime Hong Konger indelibly captures the place, its people, & the untold history they are claiming, just as it is being erased. The story of Hong Kong has long been dominated by competing myths: to Britain, a “barren rock” with no appreciable history; to China, a part of Chinese soil from time immemorial, at last returned to the ancestral fold. For decades, Hong Kong’s history was simply not taught, especially to Hong Kongers, obscuring its origins as a place of refuge & rebellion. When protests erupted in 2019 & were met with escalating suppression from Beijing, Louisa Lim—raised in Hong Kong as a half-Chinese, half-English child, & now a reporter who has covered the region for nearly two decades—realized that she was uniquely positioned to unearth the city’s untold stories. Lim’s deeply researched & personal account casts startling new light on key moments: the British takeover in 1842, the negotiations over the 1997 return to China, & the future Beijing seeks to impose. Indelible City features guerrilla calligraphers, amateur historians & archaeologists, & others who, like Lim, aim to put Hong Kongers at the center of their own story. Wending through it all is the King of Kowloon, whose iconic street art both embodied & inspired the identity of Hong Kong—a site of disappearance & reappearance, power & powerlessness, loss & reclamation.°°° Louisa Lim is the author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize & the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. She covered China & Hong Kong for more than two decades as a correspondent for the BBC & NPR, & has also written for The New York Times, The Wash­ington Post, & The Guardian. Raised in Hong Kong, she lives in A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR An award-winning journalist and longtime Hong Konger indelibly captures the place, its people, and the untold history they are claiming, just as it is being erased. The story of Hong Kong has long been dominated by competing myths: to Britain, a “barren rock” with no appreciable history; to China, a part of Chinese soil from time immemorial, at last returned to the ancestral fold. For decades, Hong Kong’s history was simply not taught, especially to Hong Kongers, obscuring its origins as a place of refuge and rebellion. When protests erupted in 2019 and were met with escalating suppression from Beijing, Louisa Lim—raised in Hong Kong as a half-Chinese, half-English child, and now a reporter who has covered the region for nearly two decades—realized that she was uniquely positioned to unearth the city’s untold stories. Lim’s deeply researched and personal account casts startling new light on key moments: the British takeover in 1842, the negotiations over the 1997 return to China, and the future Beijing seeks to impose. Indelible City features guerrilla calligraphers, amateur historians and archaeologists, and others who, like Lim, aim to put Hong Kongers at the center of their own story. Wending through it all is the King of Kowloon, whose iconic street art both embodied and inspired the identity of Hong Kong—a site of disappearance and reappearance, power and powerlessness, loss and reclamation. An award-winning journalist and longtime Hong Konger indelibly captures the place, its people, and the untold history they are claiming, just as it is being erased. The story of Hong Kong has long been dominated by competing myths: to Britain, a ?barren rock? with no appreciable history; to China, a part of Chinese soil from time immemorial, at last returned to the ancestral fold. ??For decades, its history was simply not taught, especially to Hong Kongers, obscuring its origins as a place of refuge and rebellion. When protests erupted in 2019 and were met with escalating suppression from Beijing, Louisa Lim?raised in Hong Kong as a half-Chinese, half-English child, and now a reporter who has covered the region for more than a decade?realized that she was uniquely positioned to unearth Hong Kong?s untold stories. Lim?s deeply researched and personal account casts startling new light on key moments: the British takeover in 1842, the negotiations over the 1997 return to China, and the future Beijing seeks to impose. Indelible City features guerrilla calligraphers, amateur historians and archaeologists and others who, like Lim, aim to put Hong Kongers at the center of their own story. Wending through it all is the King of Kowloon, whose iconic street art both embodied and inspired the identity of Hong Kong?a site of disappearance and reappearance, power and powerlessness, loss and reclamation "An award-winning journalist and longtime Hong Konger indelibly captures the place, its people, and the untold history they are claiming, just as it is being erased. Lim's deeply researched--and deeply personal--account casts often startling new light on key moments: the British takeover in 1842, the negotiations leading to its 'return' to China in 1997, the current protests, and the future Beijing seeks to impose. Throughout, it is populated by contemporary figures who, like her, aim to put Hong Kongers at the center of their own story: guerrilla calligraphers, amateur historians and archaeologists, and wending through it all, the King of Kowloon, a mentally ill trash collector, descended from royalty, whose iconic street art both embodied and inspired the unique identity Lim unforgettably conveys--Hong Kong as a place of disappearance and reappearance, power and powerlessness, loss and reclamation, silence and voice"-- Provided by publisher