Hong Kong’s International Litfest Avoids Gratuitous Trouble

Controversial authors with controversial China or Hong Kong topics need not apply

The Hong Kong International Literary Festival, previously described as one of Asia’s most notable literary gatherings with thousands of participants and scores of events and authors, will diffidently kick off its 24th annual opening on March 4 amid a tightening grip on freedom of expression in the city by Beijing, with the willing aid and abetment of the city’s government. 

There seems an absence literary stars who characterized the litfests of the past, and a vacuum among books that might be provocative, such as the missing “Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution” by Tania Branigan or “Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide,” by Tahir Hanut Izgil, both rated among the top books written on China in 2023. There is no sign of “Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World: What China's Crackdown Reveals About Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere” by Mark L. Clifford, a former Hong Kong newspaper editor now the New York-based president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong and editorial chair of the Asian Review of Books. Clifford, in an email, said he was unsure if his book was restricted at bookstores although it was put in Special Collections behind a counter at the University of Hong Kong with an ID required of prospective readers to check it out.

Exhibits of any of these books admittedly are asking too much. More than 100 prominent individuals including editors, lawmakers, academicians, and others have been arrested as a result of 2019-2020 demonstrations that drew hundreds of thousands of people demanding the withdrawal of a local ordinance clearing the way for extradition of Hong Kong-based individuals to China. They remain on trial to this day in a process that seems likely to end with universal convictions and long prison sentences. Hundreds of others have been arrested on less serious charges and released.

The festival organizers appear to see no need to raise their heads to get them shot off. The Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao recently reported that 195 Chinese-language hard-copy books have been removed from libraries across the city, and the Hong Kong Free Press reported in 2021 that at least 255 Chinese-language digital titles have also been removed, along with 29 books about the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in Beijing that has become a black mark on the face of China. Although books relating to democracy and protest in Hong Kong are among the topics apparently targeted, HKFP said, “romantic essays and travel literature penned by democratic figures have also disappeared.”

In that worsening atmosphere, the festival’s organizers have clearly decided that caution is the best policy. Asked a series of questions by email over whether the festival has pulled in its critical horns, Laura Manning, executive director of the four-day event, told Asia Sentinel in an email only that “I am terribly sorry we are very short staffed over here and the festival is quickly approaching and therefore I will have to decline an interview at this time.”

Nonetheless, what is happening to the festival is, in large measure, what has happened to Hong Kong. From the festival’s website, it is clear that it is prudently staying a long way from any books critical of either Hong Kong’s literary freedoms, or China’s. It has good reason. In 2018, Victor Mallet, then the Asia news editor for the UK-based Financial Times, was refused an additional work visa after he chaired a lunchtime talk by Andy Chan, an advocate of autonomy for Hong Kong, at the Foreign Correspondents Club, and had to leave the city for good.

The authorities are not interested in alternative views and in fact, view them with hostility. In May of 2023, for instance, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, a tough former policeman who rose through the ranks to being picked by Beijing to run Hong Kong, told the Legislative Council in response to a question from a member over library lending policy that the government knows best in picking the values for what previously had been a free-wheeling city with arguably Asia’s most liberal policy toward a free press and free expression in its books and magazines.

“Books we are lending to the public are those recommended by the government. We would not recommend books that are illegal, have copyright issues, or those with bad ideologies,” Lee said. A few days later, he said the city’s residents could still obtain any books they wanted from the city’s private bookstores. But a survey of English-language establishments indicates there are few titles available to shoppers that would rile the government. Booksellers in any language learned their lesson from a 2015 controversy when five staff members of a former bookstore located in Causeway Bay which specialized in sometimes-scurrilous publications about mainland officials and other bigwigs went missing, all of them including one who was scooped up in Thailand, disappeared into China. Their disappearance raised international concern over the alleged abduction of Hong Kong citizens by the mainland government.

The Hong Kong government is a sponsor of the event, “without whom our festival would not be possible,” Mannering said in her brief note. There is no biting the hand that is feeding the festival. Other sponsors include Bookazine, the city’s most prominent bookstore chain, which has steered away from stocking any controversial books; The Financial Times, which continues in Hong Kong despite Mallet’s ouster; the United States Consulate, the Canadian High Commission, the Australian High Commission, the Goethe Institute, and 35-odd other organizations. 

Featuring a curated selection of authors from across the world, according to the website, “highlighted participants include award-winning author Diana Reid, Sinophone studies expert Jing Tsu, and non-fiction author Miles Johnson. A line-up of local talents is also featured, including architect Raymond Fung, photographer and reporter Chan Kit, and local poetry society Peel Street Poets. Inspired by Hong Kong’s diverse food scene, the HKILF dives into local cuisine and regional flavors with the participation of two award-winning chefs and authors, Lui Ka-chun and Fuchsia Dunlop.”

There are dozens of events hosting prominent and emerging writers featuring a mix of literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry in English, English translation, Putonghua, and Cantonese, according to the website, as well as a public program of talks, panel discussions, readings, book launches, signings, workshops, and other literary experiences. Topics, according to the website, now include “The Future-Proof Career,” with Isabel Berwick, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Ballet,” a talk by David McAllister, and Ðinosaurs and Drinks,” an evening get-together with Steve Brusatte, author of the bestselling The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs and consultant for the film “Jurassic World: Dominion.” 

Two authors who have been given considerable regional credit who will be featured are Ian Gill, a longtime Asian journalist who has written “Searching for Billie,” the extraordinary story of his Chinese mother’s life, and Vaudine England, whose “Fortune’s Bazaar: The Making of Hong Kong” describes the indispensable role immigrants and Eurasians played in building the city into what it is today. Both books were reviewed in Asia Sentinel.

There appears nothing that will set Mr. Lee’s hair on fire.