num_pages: 153
description: 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 Divided into four sections--Theory The City Streets and Signs--the novel reimagines Victoria through maps and other historical documents and artifacts mixing real-world scenarios with purely imaginary people and events while incorporating anecdotes and actual and fictional social commentary and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.
language: English
title: Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City
publisher: Columbia University Press