Submitted by admin on Fri, 2007-03-16 08:00. ::
HONG KONG (Reuters Life!) - Novelist Jan Morris, author of an acclaimed portrait of Hong Kong, hopes the former British colony will remain a bastion of freedom and an example to mainland China.
Morris is in Hong Kong for the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival 2007, which runs from March 12 to 21. This is her first visit to the city in about five years.
Q: You've travelled all over the world, but Hong Kong was one of the places that captivated you enough to write a book about it. Where does that fascination come from?
A: The British empire, to be frank. I'd just completed a trilogy of books about the empire. I was sort of doing it by going to the most dazzling cities, it seemed to me, the British had created in the world, Hong Kong being one, Sydney another.
A: Well, I only came yesterday, so my response is pretty superficial. But I might say the first thing is this smog, which is new to me. I still think of Hong Kong as clear skies, brilliant blue, and glistening sea, and since I've been here, I haven't seen any.
A: Dramatically, dramatically. The brilliance of the place is gone, isn't it? I'm not sure if it's like this everyday. The two days I've been here, it's been more or less invisible really, even at The Peak. The smog seems to rise up. Whenever I've been here I've enjoyed getting up before breakfast to walk around The Peak but I really wasn't the least compelled this time.
A: That is the ultimate purpose of Hong Kong, to be a lodestar, or a seed of democratic progress... which would then sort of blend into China. I mean the worst hasn't happened, has it? Hong Kong's liberties seem to be fairly secure. And if it's happened for the last 10 years, as it has, then maybe we'll see that it will gradually extend into China, and achieve what the British always dreamed it would achieve.
A: I've written my final book, except for one -- my posthumous book. It's going to be published after I kick the bucket. The advantage of writing a book that won't come out until your dead is that you can keep working on it until your dead. It's called "Allegorizings". As I've grown into extreme age, I've come to think that nothing is what it seems, so I've written this book to express this view that nothing has only one meaning.
A: As a writer, it was a blessing. It gives me an extra perspective and broadened my attitude and my responses. I think every writer should have this issue.
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