Muse (Hong Kong Magazine)

Muse (Hong Kong Magazine)

Muse (瞄) is a bilingual Hong Kong-based multimedia publisher specializing in content related to the art and culture scene of Hong Kong and greater China. Muse now concentrates on digital media, books, and specialized publishing projects, and is a developer for both Amazon.com’s Kindle Store and Apple’s iBookstore, Muse also maintains its own online bookstore.

Until December 2010, Muse published an award-winning monthly arts and culture magazine. It was the only art magazine to have won the Society of Publishers in Asia’s Award for Editorial Excellence (local English newspaper/ magazine category) in 2008 and 2009. The magazine started publishing in February 2007 and released its last issue in December, 2010.

Muse began publishing books under its imprint in April 2011, with Once A Hero: The Vanishing Hong Kong Cinema a book on Hong Kong film by Perry Lam. An expert in cinema and in cultural criticism, Lam had been editorial director of Muse magazine from 2007 to 2010 before becoming assistant editorial director of Oxford University Press. Another notable book from 2011 was Musings: Reading Hong Kong, China and the World a collection of essays by renowned Harvard and Chinese University of Hong Kong scholar Leo Lee Ou-fan. A review by Louis Lee in the South China Morning Post described Musings as: “engagingly written …offers not only a self-proclaimed Chinese cosmopolitan’s view on contemporary local and world literature, but also insights into the cultural and literary scene …of interest to readers worldwide who want to understand Hong Kong culture.” The book was also reviewed in major Chinese-language media including 亞洲週刊.

Muse has also participated in a two-year partnership with the Hong Kong Arts Festival to develop books presenting bilingual versions of eight plays commissioned by the Festival during 2011-2012. The books included both printed books and e-books. The bilingual series, New Plays Selection includes newly-commissioned theatre works by Yan Yu, Harriet Chung Yin-sze, Poon Chan-leung, Wong Wing-sze, Poon Wai-sum, Santayana Li Wing-lui and Chong Mui-ngam. Particularly notable is Chong's play, Murder in San Jose, because it won the Best Script Award from the Hong Kong Federation of Drama Societies and because the English translation is adapted by David Henry Hwang, the award-winning U.S. playwright.

In December 2011, Muse launched the first of a series of blogs on its web site. The bilingual blog section, labeled ‘think again’ (逆想), was launched with a theater column by Winnie Chau (周潁榆), a Hong Kong theater critic. This ongong blog was paired with the past theater archives from the magazine, encompassing more than 75 reviews and articles about Hong Kong theatre. In March 2012, a blog on architecture was added, authored by Sylvia Chan (陳曼霞).

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