Background information
"Following the trail of a man named Franklin Lung, 'Dear Franklin' by Hong Kong photographer Kurt TONG immerses the reader in the history of the Chinese diaspora, from the fall of the Middle Kingdom in 1912 to the 1950s. The book unfolds the twists and turns of a passionate affair that touches on the universal. Here the 'micro-history' resonates with the great current societal themes of armed conflict, migration, separation, disappearance...
Content
Using vintage images, newspaper clippings, letters - correspondence between two fiancés - and photographs, artist Kurt TONG tells in his photo volume 'Dear Franklin' (published in two versions: French and English) the fictional story of a man from a poor Hong Kong family in the last century who falls in love with the daughter of a Kuomintang general. Caught up in the tumult of political events, Franklin Lung and his fiancée experience the ravages of war, exile, acculturation." (© Atelier EXB, 2022)