Hong Kong Literature: Colonialism, Cosmopolitanism, Consumption

Abstract

This essay examines selected works from Hong Kong Chinese literature that exemplify the city's complex negotiations with its historical experience as a once British colony; its fraught position within China, and its present status as a global cosmopolis. It explores how writers contemplate Hong Kong's identity at various interstices—English/Chinese; Hong Kong/China; local/global—through their literary discourse. Reading the works of Wong Bik-wan, Leung Ping-kwan, Xi Xi, Hon Lai-chu, Chan Koon-chung, and Lee Bik-wa, the essay argues that the transnational, or worldly, dimension of Hong Kong literature is performed through its continual engagement with its colonial past, its urban cosmopolitan culture, and the discourses and technologies of global literary consumption. By virtue of its interlingual formations, crosscultural influences, and transmedial circulation, Hong Kong writing has carved out its own niche in relation to both Chinese and world literatures.