Fanning Out Possibilities: Dung Kai-cheung and the Multiplicities of Time

Abstract

Hong Kong has brought to world literature some of the most prolific and best-loved fiction writers in modern Chinese history. Dung Kai-cheung is one of them — a Hong Kong-based writer who has found the city to be a constant source of inspiration. This article discusses the significance of multiplicity in Dung’s fictional representation of Hong Kong (“the V-City”), focusing on his 2007 novel Histories of Time: The Luster of Mute Porcelain. In this novel, Dung explores the narrative possibility of perceiving Hong Kong as a multi-historical space through the lens of multiplying temporalities. I have coined the term “V-shaped time” to refer to this multiplication of characters and archaeology of ideas. Time, in Dung’s work, fans out with multiple possibilities of individual and collective experiences in history, with mirrored Vs resembling an hourglass. In this stratified narrative, characters create their fictional selves in their own writing. Identifying the creative self as a literary architect, Dung’s fictional writing challenges the reader to rethink a local history that has been marginalized in the linear narrative of colonial modernity.