CIVIL SOCIETY AND ART – DYSTOPIAN LITERATURE

Civil society and art are often in a dynamic interrelationship: social themes that are perceived as relevant and meaningful find their expression in the arts. And art offers a medium for social debates. Hong Kong, with its vibrant cultural and creative scene and a very active civil society, is an impressive testimony to this.

The Goethe-Institut is opening a new series of discussion on the topic of civil society and art, in which various areas will be focused on in loose succession. The third discussion will focus on Literature. Author Hon Lai Chu and playwright Yan Pat To will share their thoughts on writing in relation to the society that they live in. The discussion will be moderated by Jacqueline Leung.

About the speakers:

©HON Lai Chu

Hon Lai Chu is a Hong Kong author of several novels, including Body-sewing, as well as The Border of Centrifugation. She won the Hong Kong Biennial Award for Chinese Literature for fiction with her anthology of short stories Silent Creature in 2004. Her 2006 novel Kite Family, first published as a novella, won the New Writer’s Novella first prize from Taiwan’s Unitas Literary Association; the extended version was one of the 2008’s Books of the Year by China Times in Taiwan. Kite Family, as well as her latest work, Grey Flower, were selected as Top 10 Chinese Novels World-wide for the year 2008 and 2009 respectively. She has recently published a short story collection, Losing Caves." She is invited to speak at the panel discussion "Politics and Literature" at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2019.

©Yan Pat To

Yan Pat To is the first ethnic Chinese playwright awarded by the Berlin Theatertreffen Stuckemarkt with his ground-breaking work A Concise History of Future China. Yan received a BA in English Literature from the University of Hong Kong, an MA in Sociology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and an MA in Playwriting from Royal Holloway, University of London. His Cantonese play White Blaze of the Morning, which premiered at the 2015 EMW Festival of Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, was awarded Best Play at the 8th Hong Kong Theatre Libre. His latest work Happily ever after nuclear explosion was commissioned and produced by the Munich Residenztheater and premiered in June 2018 with its German version. The Cantonese version was staged at Tai Kwun in August 2019 and South Korea’s Asia Playwright Festival.

Moderator:
Jacqueline Leung works in the arts and is an independent writer, translator, and editor. She is the Editor-at-Large for Hong Kong at Asymptote and was previously the Assistant Manager of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival. She is a graduate of University College London and the University of Hong Kong in literary studies.

Free admission, please register at: library-hongkong@goethe.de