In May 2022, Ilaria Maria Sala published the book “The Hong Kong Eclipse”, published by Add Editore. In this book, the author recounts the radical, tragic change following the protests of the Hong Kongers in 2019 and 2020, described through the places of Hong Kong: the streets and districts of the Perfumed Port (this is the meaning of Hong Kong in Cantonese dialect) become witnesses on the one hand to the violent and tragic clashes of recent years and, on the other hand, living and present memories of a prosperous, hopeful and free past.
Thus, transported among numerous and pleasant stories of Hong Kong’s past and present, the reader learns to see, in the protests of recent years, a last and striking manifestation of the age-old, inevitable clash between the historical democratic and cosmopolitan spirit of Hong Kong and Beijing’s homologating and liberal tendencies. This clash, which apparently came to a halt following the recent protests, could also have left Hong Kong with a simple eclipse, rather than an endless darkness.
