![]() ![]() We roll our eyes at trite symbolism, tired references, tone-deaf histrionics, or dramatic geopolitical spin, and then, having exhausted our private complaints, we retweet the article or order the book in question for our friends scattered around the world anyway. It’s fine, but it’s not for us: this is what we often conclude in group chats where we send each other links to the latest books and coverage about our hometown, usually published in widely respected foreign outlets by foreign correspondents or anglophone journalists who, by the nature of our work and social spheres, are also our friends or professional acquaintances in the region. I’m telling everyone not to.” Months later, I was faced with two choices: respect her agency as an author, never read the first twenty pages, and exist in the world as she wants it to be or read the first twenty pages and text everyone I know to read this book but to skip the first twenty pages, which are not for us. When the subject of her book came up, she said, almost right away, “You don’t have to read the first twenty pages. Months before Karen Cheung’s The Impossible City came out, I met her in Hong Kong after years of circling each other’s orbits of mutual friends. ![]() Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong by Louisa Lim. The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir by Karen Cheung. ![]()
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