Dung Kai-cheung’s A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On is a playful and imaginative glimpse into the consumerist dreamscape of late-nineties Hong Kong. First published in 1999, it comprises ninety-nine sketches of life just after the handover of the former British colony to China. Each of these stories in miniature begins from a piece of ephemera, usually consumer products or pop culture phenomena, and develops alternately comic and poignant snapshots of urban life.

Dung’s sketches center on once-trendy items that evoke the world at the turn of the millennium, such as Hello Kitty, Final Fantasy VIII, a Windows 98 disk, a clamshell mobile phone, Air Jordans, and cargo shorts. The protagonist of each piece, typically a young woman, is struck by an odd, even overriding obsession with an object or fad. Characters embark on brief dalliances or relationships lasting no longer than the fashions that sparked them. Dung blends vivid everyday details—Portuguese egg tarts, Japanese TV shows, the Hong Kong subway—with situations that are often fantastical or preposterous. This catalog of vanished products illuminates how people use objects to define and even invent their own selves. A major work from one of Hong Kong’s most gifted and original writers, Dung’s archaeology of the end of the twentieth century speaks to perennial questions about consumerism, nostalgia, and identity.

"Named a New York Times Notable Book." - New York Times Book Review

"Playful and quirky, the sketches reveal Dung’s eye for this particular moment in history, and his vast imagination . . . Documenting a particular place and time, this vibrant and distinctive collection offers a kaleidoscopic vision of that era." - New York Times Book Review

"Highly addictive, the equivalent of literary dim sum." - South China Morning Post Magazine

"[These tales] are as relevant today as they were when they were first published in 1999 . . . Feed your inner nostalgia monster some of these surrealist pop-culture bites." - Kirkus Reviews

"Fascinating and refreshing." - Publishers Weekly

"Surreal, comical, and haunting, this short story collection sees magic in everyday items." - Foreword Reviews

"Dung Kai-Cheung is Hong Kong’s greatest novelist." - Three Percent

"Reading Dung Kai-cheung’s A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On is like descending into a beautiful fever dream of Hong Kong in the late ‘90s. The story collection is both a time capsule, capturing Hong Kong through pop culture references like Hello Kitty and Air Jordans, and an incantation, breathing life into a surreal cast of characters who transform themselves, literally and metaphorically, through their pop culture choices." - Necessary Fiction

"Longtime urban chronicler Dung has achieved rare distinction as one of very few figures writing about Hong Kong to win recognition in world literature. He has done so by turning mundane, unexamined items in all our lives into haunting, near-Shakespearian spiritual forces." - Nikkei Asia

"Dung Kai-cheung’s catalog is a cultural 'thick description' of popular culture filled with dry wit and humor. His sketches are not short stories. He offers flights of fancy." - Asian Review of Books

"This publication represents a milestone in broadening the readership of Dung’s work and in fostering the teaching and research of Hong Kong and Sinophone literature." - Asian Studies Review