The International Herald-Tribune reports on the first Hong Kong International Antiquarian Book Fair, held last weekend. More than sixty dealers from Europe, Asia and the US exhibited at the fair, "not only to tempt Hong Kong's book lovers, but also to edge open the door to China." Most of the buyers were reportedly from Hong Kong or China, and Asian manuscripts sold particularly well, the paper notes.
Hong Kong's antiquarian book dealers (there are now four of them) get some good coverage in the piece; their most acute problem, the author notes, "is finding older books published in Hong Kong, in Hong Kong. Local collections rarely survived the turmoil of the Japanese occupation in World War II, or the humidity, or the lack of space in people's homes."
Certainly not the last we'll be hearing of the emerging Asian rare books scene.
