Leung Ping-kwan’s Literary Works and Hong Kong Modernism

Leung Ping-kwan (Ye Si) is one of the most prominent and widely read Hong Kong modernist poets, novelists and critics. However, comparatively few in-depth studies have been conducted on the works of Leung as a modernist writer. I interviewed Leung in 2009, and when Leung was asked whether he would consider himself a modernist, his answer was yes. Despite his self-perception as a modernist, however, only a few scholarly works focus on the direct relationship between Leung’s works and modernism. Instead, Leung’s works are always discussed from various perspectives, such as from the perspectives of ordinary life/things, urbanisation, postcolonialism/colonialism, magical realism, travelogue and Chinese lyrical tradition. This project will use the main corpus of Leung’s works as examples to demonstrate how he brings these apparently disparate but actually connected topics under the umbrella of Hong Kong modernism and helps to enrich the meaning of the literary movement.

Funding Source: RGC - General Research Fund (GRF)