This week’s episode is a conversation with Hong Konger Karen Cheung about her memoir The Impossible City which was released in February 2022. Skillfully blending reportage and personal writing, Karen takes readers through the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China and the city’s massive protest movements in 2014 and 2019.

But The Impossible City is not just an account of Hong Kong’s harrowing moments of crisis and turmoil. It is also about the struggle to navigate the city’s housing market, the mental healthcare system, strained family relationships, and Karen’s search for belonging in the place she calls home.

This episode is hosted by Jessie Lau, fellow Hong Kong writer and journalist, NüVoices board member and editor of our online magazine NüStories! Together, they discuss Karen’s writing process, her connection to Hong Kong’s indie music scene, the ongoing gatekeeping and coloniality in Asia’s journalism industry, and mental health stigma within Chinese culture.