Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City

Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City

Dung, Kai-Cheung
Hansson, Anders
McDougall, Bonnie

Hardcover

Series: Weatherhead Books on Asia

Science FictionGeneral FictionLiterary Fiction

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 023116100X
ISBN13: 9780231161008
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: Jul 17 2012
Pages: 192
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.90 Width: 5.60 Depth: 7.10
Language: English

Set in the long-lost City of Victoria (a fictional world similar to Hong Kong), Atlas is written from the unified perspective of future archaeologists struggling to rebuild a thrilling metropolis. Divided into four sections--Theory, The City, Streets, and Signs--the novel reimagines Victoria through maps and other historical documents and artifacts, mixing real-world scenarios with purely imaginary people and events while incorporating anecdotes and actual and fictional social commentary and critique.

Much like the quasi-fictional adventures in map-reading and remapping explored by Paul Auster, Jorge Luis Borges, and Italo Calvino, Dung Kai-cheung's novel challenges the representation of place and history and the limits of technical and scientific media in reconstructing a history. It best exemplifies the author's versatility and experimentation, along with China's rapidly evolving literary culture, by blending fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in a story about succeeding and failing to recapture the things we lose. Playing with a variety of styles and subjects, Dung Kai-cheung inventively engages with the fate of Hong Kong since its British handover in 1997, which officially marked the end of colonial rule and the beginning of an uncharted future.

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