Over the past few years, readers, writers and publishers in Hong Kong have become interested in the city’s history. New books about colonial figures, societal events and relics not covered in textbooks have proliferated, dominating independent bookshops’ sales lists. Newly discovered colonial monuments and old buildings slated for demolition, such as the Ex-Sham Shui Po Service Reservoir and Wan Chai’s Fenwick Pier, which witnessed the arrival of foreign navies, also have attracted visitors interested in recording the bygone face of Hong Kong in the form of photographs, words, drawings and paintings. Amid numerous unprecedented changes, in recent years Hongkongers have acquired a fresh curiosity about where Hong Kong came from, what it used to be like and how its journey has unfolded.

In November 2021, a novel by the important Hong Kong author Dung Kai-cheung, Hong Kong Type: A Love Letter 150 Years Late, was published in Taiwan, immediately rocketing to the top of the bestseller lists of independent bookshops in Hong Kong. ‘Hong Kong Type’ is a set of typefaces born in nineteenth-century Hong Kong that enabled British missionaries to produce various Chinese-language publications using movable type. The novel uses movable type as a departure point for a recounting of the history of Hong Kong.

• Tags: Dung Kai-Cheung, Hong Kong, Issue 28, Jennifer Feeley, Wong Yi