"City Like Water": Dorothy Tse's Dystopian Parable of Hong Kong's Vanishing Memory
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Summary
A review and analysis of Dorothy Tse's novel "City Like Water," a dystopian parable about Hong Kong subsiding out of memory. The article explores how Tse's surreal, fragmented narrative mirrors the erasure of Hong Kong's identity and history, blending personal recollection with political allegory. The reviewer connects the novel's themes to broader questions about memory, displacement, and the psychological toll of living through political transformation.
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Twitter / X"City Like Water": Dorothy Tse's Dystopian Parable of Hong Kong's Vanishing Memorylareviewofbooks.orgKey quotes
· 3 pulledSince I was young, Hong Kong has been a place that lived in a time and space preceding me.
My father would recount memories of his time there in the 1990s as a PhD student at the University of Hong Kong.
He told stories of sharing a cramped dorm room, listening to Voice of America on the radio, and practicing tai chi on campus, speaking with a fondness matched only by nostalgia for his childhood.
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