Wary of national security law, bookshop chain keeps Hong Kong political book out
Local bookstore chain Bookazine has refused to stock a political book, titled “Hong Kong on the Frontline 1997-2020” by American writer and columnist Kent Ewing, Hong Kong Free Press reports.
In an email to Ewing, a director from Bookazine wrote that the company would like to “stay under the radar” because of the national security law.
Bookazine, a family-run business founded in 1985, now has nine stores across the city.
Commissioned before the legislation was introduced, the title included a series of essays on major political figures and events in Hong Kong since British handed the city back to China. It was scheduled to be released in late September and early October, yet Ewing was informed through email that the book will not be stocked and told to retrieve samples of the book from the store.
In mid-September, his publisher FormAsia Books also said it could not find a printer for the book, citing “a string of reasons”, and later cancelled the project altogether.
Writing in HKFP, Ewing said he hoped to write a chronicle of the city’s “raucous social and political development” from the 1997 handover to the present. Topics of the essays include former Chief Executive Tung Chee-wah, the Occupy Movement in 2014 as well as the catastrophic rule of Chief Executive Carrie Lam. He described the book as “the most readable and visually appealing package.”
He thought he was in good hands as FormAsia has provided help throughout the process and sustained a good reputation for more than four decades.
He noted that the publisher could not secure a printer, a designer or venues to sell the book, even though it had paid lawyers to go over the drafts in detail to make sure it does not violate the national security law. “They are running a business, not a cause, and so they minimized their losses, dropped the project and took up far safer subjects such as hikers’ guides and coffee-table albums,” Ewing wrote.
He rejected the option of self-publishing, as “the book was dead on arrival in a city that may also be dying. It should stay that way.”
Apple Daily has reached out to FormAsia and Bookazine for comment.
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