THE ATLAS OF A CITY 城市地圖

As the annual Hong Kong Book Fair is coming soon, loads of new books flood into the local book market. That’s why I am trying to make some recommendations here for you. The first one is “The Atlas: Archeology of an Imaginary City”, written by Hong Kong-based author Dung Kai-cheung. Linking Publishing from Taiwan recently re-publishes this all-time classic of Dung and presents it in his new “V-City series”. In “The Atlas”, a novel that pays tribute to Italio Calvino’s “Invisible Cities”, Dung questioned the spatial history of Hong Kong by rewriting and fictionalizing it. It definitely helps readers to get to know more about Hong Kong.

書展將至，新出版的書籍如河堤氾濫般澎湃湧至。就讓我在這裡推介一些值得閱讀的新書吧。打頭陣的，不作他選，必然是香港作家董啟章的《地圖集》。事實上，《地圖集》並非新書—台灣聯經出版將董氏於九十年代出版、關於城市論述的三部作品《地圖集》、《V城繁勝錄》和《Catalog》重新包裝，聯同新作《博物誌》組成為V城系列，再次展現廣大華文讀者面前。《地圖集》乃1997年寫成的組合式小說作品，董氏嘗試在這歷史性時刻重新繪述香港地圖，並為之添上想像元素，終構成這媲美卡爾維諾名著《看不見的城市》的經典作品。