The annual City Literary Festival 2013 organised by the Cultural and Sports Committee, the Chinese Civilisation Centre (CCIV) and the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics of City University of Hong Kong (CityU) was held on 19 and 20 April on the theme of “Humanity and Environmental Conservation”.

The Festival opened on 19 A pril at Wei Hing Theatre. In his opening speech, Professor Cheng Pei-kai, Director of CCIV, said this year’s festival would put more focus on the relevance of literature to environmental issues compared to previous years.

 

Professor Cheng thanked the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, the Education Bureau of Hong Kong, and the Macao Foundation for their cooperation, and thanked Hang Seng Bank for its sponsorship over the years.

 

Distinguished novelists, essayists, poets and literary critics were invited from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places to participate in the festival. They were Mr Li Rui, Mr Perry Lam, Ms Shih Shu-ching, Professor Huang Ziping, Mr Xu Zhiyuan, Ms Zhang Yihe, Mr Yip Fai, Professor Jiau Tung, Mr Liu Wai-tong, Mr Pun Kwok-ling, Professor Cheng Chou-yu, and Ms Han Liang-lu. Those who attended the opening shared their views and ideas about humanity and environmental conservation in a talk that followed.

 

As in past years, the opening and the talk were followed by dialogues in
the afternoon between the guests and local audiences in four genre-groups, namely those of the essay, story, poetry, and cultural and art criticism.

 

The “Meet the Writers” session on the morning of 20 April, co-organised by CityU and the Education Bureau, was attended by students from local secondary schools.

 

Started in 2006, the annual City Literary Festival includes the City Literary Award competition, talks by the writers and literary scholars, and dialogues between them and local audiences.