Fair stacked in favour of local politics
Now you can play Occupy Central, the card game as publishers go big on key issues at fair
Occupy Central will be occupying the minds of readers at the annual Hong Kong Book Fair when it opens today, with new titles on the movement as well as local politics and identity hitting the shelves.
Publishers say there will be something for everyone, whether they support or oppose the pro-democracy movement.
There's been plenty of inspiration for political satire in the past year - we've had a bunch of politically impotent people in government and politics
One of its organisers, Benny Tai Yiu-ting, has even written a book about it.
"It's a book echoing the hottest social issue in town," said William So Wai-leung, general manager of Ming Pao Publications, which published .
The movement plans to blockade the business district next July if the government fails to come up with a satisfactory plan for universal suffrage in the 2017 chief executive election. Tai, who is also a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, will be signing copies at the fair today at 4pm and on Sunday at 3pm.
The political theme doesn't end there. The NeoDemocrats will launch an Occupy Central card game at the fair, the rules of which will be explained by party lawmaker Gary Fan Kwok-wai at 10am today.
Meanwhile, Up Publications is releasing 13 new titles for the fair, ranging from political satire to explorations of local culture.
"There's been plenty of inspiration for political satire in the past year - we've had a bunch of politically impotent people in government and politics," said Carmen Kwong Wing-suen, editor-in-chief at the publisher.
Sub-Culture will have 16 new titles at the fair, covering local culture, identity and politics. Two of them - and - were written by autonomy advocate Dr Horace Chin Wan-kan.
"My books aren't against mainlanders, but I want to remind Hongkongers that Hong Kong is our home and we should be the boss of our home," said Chin, an assistant professor in the Chinese department at Lingnan University. He will be signing books at the fair every afternoon.
A record 560 exhibitors will take part in the fair this year, which runs until Tuesday.
