Countless works have been written about Wanchai and the Peak, but at this event we would like to present works that are set in Kowloon or tell stories about Kowloon.

The well-known Hong Kong writer Leung Ping-kwan, better known as Yesi, has written a poem about Apliu Street in Sham Shui Po; the contemporary Hong Kong author Tong Yui has written a series of short stories set in Mong Kok. Hong Kong writer XiXi grew up in the To Kwa Wan district of Kowloon, which greatly inspired her works.

We would like to talk about these districts and briefly introduce the works. The talk with Tong Yui and Fong Tai Chor (Hong Kong writer, journalist and curator)will be conducted by Kathrin Bode, who has translated quite a lot of Hong Kong Literature pieces into German in recent years.

The event will be hold in English language. Free Admission. Please register.

Speakers:

Christophe Tong Yui received his PhD in Chinese (Comparative Literature) from Fudan University in Shanghai and got his MA in Comparative Literature and BA in French Literature from Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III). He is one of the winners of The 1st Young Writers’ Debut Competition and his novel Footnotes was awarded the Prize in Novel by The 10th Hong Kong Biennial Awards for Chinese Literature in 2009.

Christophe is also a French-Chinese translator. His translation Colporteur «行腳商» was published by East China Normal University Press in Shanghai in 2010. Tong has taught for Creative Writing and Film Art programme at The Open University of Hong Kong and Language Centre at Hong Kong Baptist University. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Creative Writing at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Fong Tai Chor is writer, Journalist and Curator. Former director of object a, a fashion and design multimedia platform, a curator focusing on intertextuality between body, city and culture. Recent projects include LitSat, This Body and TempHome Stories.

Her books, The Pathos of Things（《浮世物哀》） and Fashion and Melancholy Objects (《衣飾忘憂》) , feature a collection of essays taking an in-depth look at fashion from various perspectives including philosophy, history and culture.

Kathrin Bode studied the Chinese language in Bonn and Wuhan, Hubei Province. 2004, she graduated in the University of Bonn as teacher for German as a Foreign language. She worked as such at the universities in Bonn and Cologne, Germany. From 2015 to 2019, she moved to Tianjin, Mainland China, and worked as a DAAD lecturer (German Academic Exchange Service) in the German department at Tianjin Foreign Language University. In 2020, she began teaching at Hong Kong Baptist University, again as a DAAD-lecturer. In her spare time, she translates from Chinese into German. She translated poems by Chinese poet Lin Bai, published 2021 by Hefte für Ostasiatische Literatur in Munich; in 2022. A short story collection by Feng Jicai was published by Ostasien Verlag in Großheirath, Germany, followed by a short story by the Beijing author Shi Yifeng, which will has been published this year.