Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The latest eye-opening journalistic account of the ongoing tumult in Hong Kong. Journalist Lim, the author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, examines the unrest in terms of dominion, possession, and defiance. “The issue of belonging,” she writes, “has always been a complicated one for me, as a half-English, half-Chinese person who was born in England but brought up in Hong Kong.” Now living and teaching in Melbourne, Lim writes, “my position on the sidelines liberates me to write more openly than others” about the vibrant, defiant spirit of the citizens, especially since the passage of the China-enforced National Security Law. The author’s determined, methodical chronicle captures her growing unease and complex thoughts about joining the ranks of the activists and dissidents. “Overnight,” she writes, “a mostly free society had become an authoritarian one.” With the freedom of the press (and the internet) severely restricted, police are targeting reporters. Lim returns often to the tragic life and exceptional work of Tsang Tsou-choi (1921-2007), a once-homeless Hong Kong artist. Nicknamed “the King of Kowloon,” he would use “misshapen, childlike calligraphy” to create graffiti asserting his grievance that he had been robbed of his ancestral land, and he became famous as a personification of Hong Kong citizens’ sense of dispossession after the handover by Britain in 1997. Throughout this smooth mixture of reportage and memoir, Lim ably captures the increasingly malignant actions by the Communist Party, which have become more alarming by the day. “The days and nights,” she writes, “were melding into a single livestream of tear gas, deployed with horrifying and mesmerizing beauty….By the end of 2019, the police had fired sixteen thousand rounds of tear gas, violating both their own guidelines and the Chemical Weapons Convention.” This book is a good complement to Karen Cheung’s The Impossible City. An affecting portrayal of the spirited nature of Hong Kong and the many challenges it faces. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
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Journalist Lim (The People’s Republic of Amnesia) mixes memoir and reportage in this riveting portrait of Hong Kong. Interweaving an up-close view of recent protests against Chinese rule with evocative details about Hong Kong’s colonial past, Lim contends that the 50-year term for “One Country, Two Systems”—the policy that was supposed to govern its 1997 transition from a British possession to a sovereign territory of China—has ended well ahead of schedule. She explains that Hong Kong officials were excluded in all but “an advisory capacity” from negotiations between Britain and China setting the rules for the handover, and documents how the steady erosion of freedoms led to the “Umbrella Movement” of 2014 (“an explosion of discontent, desire, and, above all, hope”) and widespread anti-government protests in 2019. Lim also explores Hong Kong’s multifaceted identity through profiles of residents including Tsang Tsou-choi, the “King of Kowloon,” a “toothless, often shirtless, disabled trash collector” who in the 1950s began covering government property with “misshapen, childlike calligraphy” claiming the British stole his family’s land: the entire Kowloon Peninsula. Conversations with protestors, many of whom were not yet born in 1997, convey their burning idealism as well as their growing sense of futility. The result is a vivid and vital contribution to postcolonial history. (Apr.)

Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

What is the Hong Kong identity? This is the central question of journalist Lim's (The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited) beautifully written book. She addresses this question by tracing the history of Hong Kong from prehistoric times, Chinese imperial rule, British colonization, the handover to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1997, and through to the present day. In addition to archival research, this book includes information gathered by interviews with a number of prominent people. Interspersed throughout are Lim's personal stories of her life there, and the tales of the colorful King of Kowloon (Tsang Tsou Choi, 1921–2007), an eccentric graffiti artist who claimed to be the true ruler of Hong Kong. The book concludes with a tragic epilogue of how the national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the PRC in 2020 has virtually stripped the region of civil liberties it previously enjoyed. VERDICT A fascinating work that is essential reading for anyone with an interest in Hong Kong. Those looking for something focused more exclusively on the 2019 protests should consider Antony Dapiran's City on Fire.—Joshua Wallace

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The latest eye-opening journalistic account of the ongoing tumult in Hong Kong.Journalist Lim, the author of The Peoples Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, examines the unrest in terms of dominion, possession, and defiance. The issue of belonging, she writes, has always been a complicated one for me, as a half-English, half-Chinese person who was born in England but brought up in Hong Kong. Now living and teaching in Melbourne, Lim writes, my position on the sidelines liberates me to write more openly than others about the vibrant, defiant spirit of the citizens, especially since the passage of the China-enforced National Security Law. The authors determined, methodical chronicle captures her growing unease and complex thoughts about joining the ranks of the activists and dissidents. Overnight, she writes, a mostly free society had become an authoritarian one. With the freedom of the press (and the internet) severely restricted, police are targeting reporters. Lim returns often to the tragic life and exceptional work of Tsang Tsou-choi (1921-2007), a once-homeless Hong Kong artist. Nicknamed the King of Kowloon, he would use misshapen, childlike calligraphy to create graffiti asserting his grievance that he had been robbed of his ancestral land, and he became famous as a personification of Hong Kong citizens sense of dispossession after the handover by Britain in 1997. Throughout this smooth mixture of reportage and memoir, Lim ably captures the increasingly malignant actions by the Communist Party, which have become more alarming by the day. The days and nights, she writes, were melding into a single livestream of tear gas, deployed with horrifying and mesmerizing beauty.By the end of 2019, the police had fired sixteen thousand rounds of tear gas, violating both their own guidelines and the Chemical Weapons Convention. This book is a good complement to Karen Cheungs The Impossible City.An affecting portrayal of the spirited nature of Hong Kong and the many challenges it faces. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Lim’s outstanding history of Hong Kong is an epic must-read, covering Hong Kong from its earliest beginnings to the 2019–20 protests. From the first page, the importance of language and the voices of Hong Kongers are central themes. Yet Indelible City captures much more as it records the struggle of a people oppressed by British colonialism and suppressed by communist China yet determined in their pursuit of freedom and cultural identity. An outward manifestation of Hong Kong’s character, Lim notes, is evoked in the work of an artist known as the King of Kowloon (1921–2007). Though considered unstable by many, the King of Kowloon left his unique mark on the city through street art. As she relates Hong Kong’s history and the myriad ways colonialism and communism stifled liberty and expression, Lim returns throughout to the King of Kowloon’s messaging and influence. After the historic British-to-Chinese handover in 1997 and despite an agreed-upon “one country, two systems” policy, China continually chips away at independence. Censorship is rife, books go missing, bookstore owners are disappeared, and Cantonese, the language traditionally spoken in Hong Kong, is hushed in favor of Mandarin. Lim closes with 2019’s stunning events, the disquieting erasure of the King of Kowloon’s beloved works, which have come to represent the spirit of a people, and continued resistance and opposition to totalitarianism.

Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Raised in Hong Kong and now living in Australia, Orwell Prize finalist Lim argues that any understanding of her in-the-news birthplace has been too long overshadowed by two key events: the British occupation in 1834 and the handover to China in 1997. Part-Chinese, part-English Lim aims to provide a thoroughgoing history, including a deep dive into Hong Kong's origins (which she says are not well known or taught) and Beijing's plans for the region. Personal portraits of everyday Hong Kongers range from calligraphers to amateur archaeologists to the King of Kowloon, a trash collector descended from royalty who's famed for his street art.