For Chen Zhu, a 23-year-old from Guangzhou in mainland China, the monthly trip to Hong Kong has always revolved around one unmissable stop: Hunter Bookstore. Founded four years ago by a former local councillor, this small independent outlet has built a loyal following for stocking titles that Beijing authorities label sensitive – from firsthand accounts of Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy movement to iconic critiques of authoritarian rule like George Orwell’s *Animal Farm* and Hajime Isayama’s manga series *Attack on Titan*. Tucked between textile vendors, auto garages and hip cafes in the dense Sham Shui Po district, the shop has long served as a gateway to a different, more open space for curious mainland readers like Chen, who come here seeking answers to questions that are off-limits back home.
When Chen heard that Hong Kong police had raided Hunter in late June and arrested its owner, she broke down in tears. “I was devastated,” she recalled. Her grief reflects a growing crisis that has swept Hong Kong’s independent bookshop sector, a community that exploded in popularity after the 2019 pro-democracy protests but has faced mounting existential pressure as Beijing tightened its control over the city under the 2020 National Security Law (NSL). While Beijing frames the NSL as a critical tool to restore stability to Hong Kong, critics including many Hong Kong residents and international human rights groups argue the legislation has effectively gutted freedom of expression in the city. Thousands of locals, from democracy activists to former lawmakers, have fled Hong Kong in recent years, as the sweeping law has led to hundreds of arrests and convictions on national security and sedition charges.
The June raid on Hunter Bookstore resulted in the arrest of 33-year-old owner Letitia Wong and a 32-year-old male associate on charges of sedition and money laundering. Both have denied all allegations and been released on bail. Hunter was not an isolated case: just three months earlier, the owner of Book Punch bookstore and three of his staff were arrested on identical charges, with police seizing copies of a biography of jailed democracy campaigner and media tycoon Jimmy Lai. On July 15, the opening day of Hong Kong’s annual flagship Hong Kong Book Fair, national security officers raided two more independent outlets – Greenfield Bookstore and Have a Nice Stay – arresting five people on sedition charges who were later bailed. By the end of July, Greenfield, a 50-year-old institution that had served generations of readers, announced it would permanently close when its lease expired, becoming the third independent bookshop to shut its doors in just one month.
For decades, these small independent bookshops have attracted a devoted customer base that extends far beyond Hong Kong’s borders, drawing thousands of curious readers from mainland China every year who travel hundreds of kilometers to access titles banned on the mainland’s heavily censored internet. For 19-year-old Li, a student from Shanghai who requested anonymity, these shops are rare spaces “where you can see so many possibilities, and where existing ideas can be challenged.” For many mainland readers, they offer a sense of open discourse and community that cannot be found back home – a space that is now at risk of disappearing entirely as the crackdown intensifies.
The story of Chen Zhu’s search for reading material illustrates the draw these shops hold for young mainland readers. When Chen started university in 2021, she grew increasingly curious about topics erased from mainland public discourse, most notably the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, a topic completely scrubbed from the mainland’s controlled internet. After watching popular but underground films that touched on the event – including the romantic drama *Summer Palace* and the independent film *Lan Yu* – failed to satisfy her curiosity, she set her sights on finding *The Unburned Book*, a collection of reflections by Taiwanese poet Yang Du on 1989 protesters who went into exile. Immediately after the Hong Kong-mainland border reopened following COVID-19 restrictions in 2023, she traveled to Hong Kong to track down the book, at a time when the city’s independent bookshop scene was at its peak, with readers sharing curated walking routes and recommendations across social media.
At that time, the city was dotted with beloved independent outlets: the discount-focused Luck Win in busy Mong Kok, Greenfield with its floor-to-ceiling packed shelves, the cozy Have a Nice Stay founded by former journalists that hosted popular late-night reading sessions, the cramped but beloved Elmbook where regulars treated browsing like a treasure hunt, Book Punch with its defiant motto “one punch to wake the reader” on Tai Nan Street, Word by Word – a popular spot for foodies in historic Wan Chai – and Hunter, with its outdoor sofa where passersby could rest. It was at Hunter that Chen finally found *The Unburned Book*, after searching through half a dozen other shops without luck.
Beyond accessing banned books, readers value these shops for the open, connected community they foster. During Li’s visit to Hong Kong earlier this year, just months after a devastating apartment fire in Tai Po killed 168 people, she found a wall of black sticky notes at Hunter Bookstore where visitors had left messages of solidarity for the victims and their families. This kind of open public collective grief is rare on the mainland, Li explained, where authorities often restrict unregulated public expression around sensitive events. “People can only express themselves indirectly” back home, she said. She was also struck by the small personal touches: handwritten notes from booksellers next to titles, sharing their own reflections on the work or highlighting meaningful passages – something she had never encountered in mainland bookshops. For Chen, the sense of shared community means she never feels like an outsider, even when browsing alone. “You’ve left mainland China behind. Of course, you know this freedom has its limits. But it’s still better than not being able to say anything at all,” she said.
Today, that limited freedom is rapidly shrinking. In the lead-up to this year’s book fair, two low-profile shops that rarely organized public events, Luck Win and Elmbook, were publicly condemned in Wen Wei Po, a Beijing-controlled newspaper in Hong Kong. The paper accused the shops of selling books that promote “soft resistance,” including *The Hong Kong Diaries* by Chris Patten, Hong Kong’s last British governor before the 1997 handover, and *300 Short Essays* by Lee Yee, a late columnist for the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper *Apple Daily* – whose owner Jimmy Lai is currently serving a prison sentence under the NSL.
Tong Kin-long, a researcher at University College London, explained that this vague enforcement strategy is intentional. “The authorities don’t want people to know exactly where the boundaries are,” he said. “They want people to work out the red lines for themselves, or to censor themselves before crossing them.” For many long-time observers of media in China, the crackdown on Hong Kong’s independent bookshops echoes a gradual tightening that has already reshaped the mainland’s bookselling landscape over the past decade. K, a 30-something reader from Sichuan who requested anonymity, recalled that mainland bookshops were once vibrant spaces for open discussion, with liberal titles and magazines prominently displayed and regular public talks. But from 2015 onward, he watched as restrictions gradually tightened: first books about political leaders were pulled, then less obviously sensitive titles disappeared, public events became rarer, and the open atmosphere faded. Chen says a friend who runs a small bookshop in Guangzhou faces regular police harassment, with authorities even cutting power during private film screenings the shop hosts.
Even for readers who manage to travel to Hong Kong, bringing banned books back to the mainland carries significant risk, as customs officials regularly seize titles deemed a threat to national security. Many readers, like K, go to great lengths to smuggle their purchases back, choosing busy border crossings, hiding books deep in luggage or inside clothing, and avoiding titles with prominent covers featuring sensitive names. But today, smuggling is no longer the biggest worry. “In the past, people would simply think, ‘If I can’t buy a book in mainland China, I’ll go to Hong Kong’. Now the feeling is different. You don’t even know which bookshops will still be here the next time you come,” K said.
The wave of closures has accelerated in recent months. A week after Elmbook was excluded from the 2024 Hong Kong Book Fair, it announced it would close its physical location in April 2025. Have a Nice Stay soon followed, announcing it would shut at the end of August 2024, citing both economic pressure and the unpredictability of official “red lines” around what content is permitted. Many in Hong Kong’s bookselling industry have grown deeply pessimistic about the future, with some expecting conditions to worsen before any potential improvement. But despite the crackdown, many readers remain committed to sustaining the remaining independent shops, framing their visits as an act of quiet resistance. “Buying a book has become a quiet way of showing support, and a quiet form of resistance,” said Chris, a 20-year-old mainland reader who requested anonymity, adding that despite the recent arrests he will continue traveling to Hong Kong to visit the remaining independent outlets. As one industry insider put it: readers still have agency. “We can still buy books. We can still read. And we can still read a great many books.”