Hong Kong Book Fair Subdued After Bookseller Disappearances

The 2016 Hong Kong book fair, the most important event in the city’s literary calendar, opened its doors on Wednesday to familiar long queues and hordes of special security personnel on watch for potential stampedes. Inside, it was business as usual: a large convention hall divided into genres, with one large area just for religious publishers, complete with saffron-robed monks writing calligraphy and dispensing blessings. Media types gathered on the first floor where a local starlet in a low-cut dress posed for photographers in front of a stand devoted to fashion books and magazines.

But this year is the first fair held in Hong Kong since the disappearances of five booksellers from the city in late 2015. For many visitors, the attention is squarely on the few publishers still willing to sell “forbidden books.”