Dung Kai-cheung's Books

The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera

Written by Dung Kai-cheung under the Inspiration of the Ancient Chinese Treatise Celestial Creations and the Works of Man

By: Dung Kai-cheung (董啟章)

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The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera

Written by Dung Kai-cheung under the Inspiration of the Ancient Chinese Treatise Celestial Creations and the Works of Man

By: Dung Kai-cheung (董啟章)

Award-winning author Dung Kai-cheung weaves together two inventive narratives in this remarkable book. One is the story of a novelist who recounts his family’s history against the backdrop of Hong Kong’s development from the 1930s to the 1990s. Dung builds this story through vignettes about the protagonist’s relationship with technological inventions that shaped his life, as glimpsed through his uncertain memory and family myths. Running parallel to this is a rebellion by the novelist’s oppressed fictional characters, who attempt to break the yoke of servile obedience laid upon them by the conventions of novel-writing. The central character, Vivi, has been written into being by the author and, once created, she seems to take on a life of her own and moves from being fabricated to being real, even bravely undertaking the journey to meet her creator—the novelist—in the real world. Fantasy and realism combine to suggest that crossing boundaries is inherent part of our nature. “Dung Kai-cheung is the most important writer of contemporary Hong Kong. Since the end of the last century, his work has constituted an alternative history of Hong Kong: the city’s splendor and dilemma, its fantastic metamorphoses and uncanny fate. The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera represents Dung at his best. The novel chronicles the changes and continuities of Hong Kong in the final decades of colonial rule, and projects a futuristic vision in which postcolonial nostalgia meets postmodernist fantasia, and family romance begets science fantasy. Above all, Dung seeks to inscribe Hong Kong as fiction, and celebrate the power of creativity that is Hong Kong.” —David Der-wei Wang, Edward C. Henderson Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University “Dung Kai-cheung is Hong Kong’s most prolific and innovative contemporary novelist. His work is at once playful and challenging, brilliant and imaginative, and filled with a sense of mystery and discovery. The first volume in Dung’s acclaimed ‘Natural History’ trilogy, The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera is nothing short of a qishu, or ‘book of wonder.’ Freely navigating different times and spaces, people and objects, autobiographies and fictions, Dung Kai-cheung has written a new allegory for our troubled times.” —Michael Berry, Professor of Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies at UCLA, author of Speaking in Images and A History of Pain

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Page Count

563

Publisher

Hong Kong University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

9881604761

ISBN 13

9789881604767

A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On

By: Kai-cheung Dung

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A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On

By: Kai-cheung Dung

Dung Kai-cheung’s A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On is a playful and imaginative glimpse into the consumerist dreamscape of late-nineties Hong Kong. First published in 1999, it comprises ninety-nine sketches of life just after the handover of the former British colony to China. Each of these stories in miniature begins from a piece of ephemera, usually consumer products or pop culture phenomena, and develops alternately comic and poignant snapshots of urban life. Dung’s sketches center on once-trendy items that evoke the world at the turn of the millennium, such as Hello Kitty, Final Fantasy VIII, a Windows 98 disk, a clamshell mobile phone, Air Jordans, and cargo shorts. The protagonist of each piece, typically a young woman, is struck by an odd, even overriding obsession with an object or fad. Characters embark on brief dalliances or relationships lasting no longer than the fashions that sparked them. Dung blends vivid everyday details—Portuguese egg tarts, Japanese TV shows, the Hong Kong subway—with situations that are often fantastical or preposterous. This catalog of vanished products illuminates how people use objects to define and even invent their own selves. A major work from one of Hong Kong’s most gifted and original writers, Dung’s archaeology of the end of the twentieth century speaks to perennial questions about consumerism, nostalgia, and identity.

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Page Count

218

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231555997

ISBN 13

9780231555999

Atlas

The Archaeology of an Imaginary City

By: Kai-cheung Dung

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Atlas

The Archaeology of an Imaginary City

By: Kai-cheung Dung

Set in the long-lost City of Victoria (a fictional world similar to Hong Kong), Atlas is written from the unified perspective of future archaeologists struggling to rebuild a thrilling metropolis. Divided into four sections—"Theory," "The City," "Streets," and "Signs"—the novel reimagines Victoria through maps and other historical documents and artifacts, mixing real-world scenarios with purely imaginary people and events while incorporating anecdotes and actual and fictional social commentary and critique. Much like the quasi-fictional adventures in map-reading and remapping explored by Paul Auster, Jorge Luis Borges, and Italo Calvino, Dung Kai-cheung's novel challenges the representation of place and history and the limits of technical and scientific media in reconstructing a history. It best exemplifies the author's versatility and experimentation, along with China's rapidly evolving literary culture, by blending fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in a story about succeeding and failing to recapture the things we lose. Playing with a variety of styles and subjects, Dung Kai-cheung inventively engages with the fate of Hong Kong since its British "handover" in 1997, which officially marked the end of colonial rule and the beginning of an uncharted future.

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Page Count

215

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231504225

ISBN 13

9780231504225

Cantonese Love Stories

Twenty-five Vignettes of a City: Penguin Specials

By: Dung Kai-cheung

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Cantonese Love Stories

Twenty-five Vignettes of a City: Penguin Specials

By: Dung Kai-cheung

A collection of twenty-five narrative sketches, Cantonese Love Stories offers an intimate look into the cultural, commercial and romantic milieu of Hong Kong in the 1990s. Two lovers ruminate on the power of their photo booth stickers to keep them together. Peach-pocket Girl reads stolen love letters at a café. Pui Pui knows a Portuguese egg tart is authentic if she dreams of riding a boat-like egg tart. Each character inhabits a different corner of Hong Kong’s dreamscape; together they bring to life Dung Kai-cheung’s imaginative vision of the city.

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Page Count

109

Publisher

Penguin Group Australia

Published Date

ISBN 10

0143786954

ISBN 13

9780143786955

Cantonese Love Stories

Twenty-five Vignettes of a City: Penguin Specials

By: Dung Kai-cheung

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Cantonese Love Stories

Twenty-five Vignettes of a City: Penguin Specials

By: Dung Kai-cheung

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Page Count

109

Publisher

Penguin Group Australia

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ISBN 10

0143786954

ISBN 13

9780143786955

Book's by Dung Kai-cheung

The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera

The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera

A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On

A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On

Atlas

Atlas

Cantonese Love Stories

Cantonese Love Stories

Cantonese Love Stories

Cantonese Love Stories

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