ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes postcolonial studies as a possible perspective through which to reflect on the development of Hong Kong English writing and explores some preliminary thoughts on what postcolonial studies can offer to the study of Hong Kong literature in English. It must first be noted that postcolonial studies and academic research on Hong Kong matters, have not been best friends. It then seems that the social and cultural reality of the mainstream Hong Kong society is also something that one have to account for in order to explain the peripherality of English literature. If we consider Louise Ho's earlier observation about Hong Kong society, then perhaps a focus on the local is restrictive not only because it is geographically small, but because its capitalist obsession is incompatible with the embrace of 'abstractions and aesthetics' in the Hong Kong creative writing community. Finally, the chapter also illustrates this possible loss through some speculations on the English literary journal Yuan Yang.
