Neo-Surrealism in Hong Kong: The Fiction of Hon Lai-chu and Dorothy Tse

Abstract: Although the fiction of Hong Kong writers Hon Lai-chu and Dorothy Tse Hiu-hung are frequently described as “surreal,” does this term have critical purchase beyond its misleading vernacular use for anything that appears bizarre and fantastical? In Hon’s Empty Faces and Tse’s Owlish, Surrealism proves to be deeply relevant to both writers. Surrealist visuality prioritizes the novels’ literariness and resists reading Hong Kong literature as political allegory. The precarious human face in Hon and the uncanny doll figure in Tse re-enact surreal experiences of disquietude and liminality. While neither novel embraces explicit political stances, both disrupt established lines of thinking and are profoundly relevant to Hong Kong and global issues including neo-liberalism, security, and surveillance. These novels signal the emergence of the Hong Kong neo-Surreal, which highlights imaginaries of risk and affirms Hong Kong literature as world literature .