Indelible City

Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong

By: Louisa Lim

Narrated by: Louisa Lim

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

An award-winning journalist and longtime Hong Konger indelibly captures the place, its people, and the untold history they are claiming, just as it is being erased.

The story of Hong Kong has long been dominated by competing myths: to Britain, a “barren rock” with no appreciable history; to China, a part of Chinese soil from time immemorial, at last returned to the ancestral fold. For decades, Hong Kong’s history was simply not taught, especially to Hong Kongers, obscuring its origins as a place of refuge and rebellion. When protests erupted in 2019 and were met with escalating suppression from Beijing, Louisa Lim—raised in Hong Kong as a half-Chinese, half-English child, and now a reporter who has covered the region for nearly two decades—realized that she was uniquely positioned to unearth the city’s untold stories.

Lim’s deeply researched and personal account casts startling new light on key moments: the British takeover in 1842, the negotiations over the 1997 return to China, and the future Beijing seeks to impose. Indelible City features guerrilla calligraphers, amateur historians and archaeologists, and others who, like Lim, aim to put Hong Kongers at the center of their own story. Wending through it all is the King of Kowloon, whose iconic street art both embodied and inspired the identity of Hong Kong—a site of disappearance and reappearance, power and powerlessness, loss and reclamation.

My Introduction to the East

I literally knew nothing about anything eastern.. I would not have read the book, but was acceptable as an audible. It was educational, but too entertaining. I’m sure the author intended it to be. What was great was that I learned just enough to share some interesting things to someone I met going to Hong Kong soon. Clearly the king that wasn’t really a king but eventually embraced by the people is interesting. Who knew Hong Kong was a seven mile island. I do now. Lol.

Hong Kong's identity, then, now, and in the future

I appreciated Louisa's perspectives on Hong Kong, its history, and its struggle to find its identity following the handover to the PRC. She creates an intriguing framework within which to view and retell the story of Hong Kong. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the subject.

Visceral History

Foreign correspondent Louisa Lim takes us right in the uniqueness of cityhood and identity, showing us why HKers fought so hard for the city they love so much.