From Xu Xi to the Chief Executive: Hong Kong in the Dock

Document Type

Book chapter

Source Publication

Hong Kong Culture: Word and Image

Publication Date

2010

First Page

97

Last Page

112

Publisher

Hong Kong University Press

Keywords

Xu Xi, Herman Yau, Hong Kong, fiction, non-fiction, creative non-fiction, essays

Abstract

This chapter discusses one of Xu Xi's most critically acute recent essays, “A Short History of Our Shores,” and Herman Yau's controversial 1999 film essay Danghau Tung Chee-hwa Fatlok and argues that they are among the most uncomfortably critical and stylistically virtuosic works made in the Special Administrative Region and designed to prick Hong Kong's post-1997 self-congratulatory bubble. It presents the case for encouraging the development of more critically polemical work in arts and literature in Hong Kong. It refers to other examples of implicitly critical artistic works and discusses the thin line between fiction and non-fiction that the essay form so often, as here, successfully straddles. The concept of the academic essay based on argumentation derives from the original literary form. The main difference is that the professional writer usually allows her or himself the license to engage in what is known as creative non-fiction, and to disregard formal register and conventional structure.

DOI

10.5790/hongkong/9789888028412.003.0007

Publisher Statement

Hong Kong Culture © 2010 Hong Kong University Press

Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.

Additional Information

ISBN of the source publication: 9789888028412

Full-text Version

Publisher’s Version

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Ingham, M.. (2010). From Xu Xi to the Chief Executive: Hong Kong in the Dock. In K. Louie (Ed.), Hong Kong Culture: Word and Image (pp. 97–112). Hong Kong University Press. DOI: 10.5790/hongkong/9789888028412.003.0007

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