Abstract

Although Shih Shu-ching’s Hong Kong Trilogy has frequently been interpreted as a postcolonial narrative of identity and colonial history, how its narrative form transforms fragmented historical experiences into historical consciousness remains relatively underexplored. Drawing on Boym’s theory of reflective nostalgia, Anderson’s concept of imagined communities, and Soja’s theorization of urban space, this article examines how narrative constructs historical consciousness through the interconnected temporal, material, and spatial dimensions of historical reconstruction. Using close readings of the original Chinese editions, the analysis follows Huang Deyun’s life trajectory across the trilogy and examines how material objects, clothing, and urban environments connect individual experience with broader historical transformations and collective memory in colonial Hong Kong. It demonstrates that reflective nostalgia provides the temporal orientation through which the past is reconstructed rather than represented. Material culture functions as the narrative medium through which historical experience becomes perceptible, whereas urban space organizes these dispersed experiences into a shared historical imagination. Together, these interacting narrative structures produce historical consciousness rather than merely representing Hong Kong’s past. Overall, this study contributes to narratological discussions of postcolonial historical fiction by demonstrating how historical consciousness is produced through narrative organization rather than through historical representation in the specific context of colonial Hong Kong.