Nostalgia in the Chinese City: Authors Antony Dapiran and Paul French on Collective Memory and Amnesia


Why We Recommend it
This talk by two authors explores the wistful corners of their work on the murky histories of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. It is part of a series of events held by literary magazine Cha journal.
Description
Authors Antony Dapiran and Paul French discuss how fading histories of the cities they have lived in and written about, are infused in their works. They argue that feelings of nostalgia and loss are particularly potent in fast developing metropolises of Beijing and Shanghai, alongside Hong Kong.
In this talk, they will explore the ambivalence of nostalgic feelings, and the extent to which they are political and personal, while also examining the ways in which these three cities suffer from forms of the “culture of disappearance.”
Antony Dapiran is the author of City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong, published by Penguin, and has written extensively on Hong Kong.
Paul French authored New York Times best seller Midnight in Peking (Penguin), which is currently being developed as a series for TV. He is visiting Hong Kong to launch his new book City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir (Penguin), centred on the dancehalls, casinos and cabarets of wartime Shanghai.
The talk is free of admission.
Details
When: 21 Apr 2018 - 21 Apr 2018 Where: Kubrick – Shop H2, Properous Garden, 3 Public Square Street – Yau Ma Tei