Book & Film Groups
Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance by Louisa Lim
What is Hong Kong? The British considered it a “barren rock” without meaningful history. The People's Republic of China claimed it as its own, and believe it was finally returned to its rightful place in 1997. When protests erupted in 2019 and were met with escalating suppression, Louisa Lim, a journalist raised in Hong Kong felt compelled to unearth Hong Kong’s history. In Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance, Lim interviews guerrilla calligraphers, amateur historians, and archaeologists to put together a story of Hong Kong as told from the perspectives of its locals.
Booklist review: Lim’s outstanding history of Hong Kong is an epic must-read, covering Hong Kong from its earliest beginnings to the 2019–20 protests. From the first page, the importance of language and the voices of Hong Kongers are central themes. Yet Indelible City captures much more as it records the struggle of people oppressed by British colonialism and suppressed by communist China yet determined in their pursuit of freedom and cultural identity.
Join Tese Wintz Neighbor and Ryan Hauck and page through Hong Kong history with author Louisa Lim as she poignantly and brilliantly puts Hong Kongers at the center of their own story.