During our coffee break one afternoon, my aunt was pleased to tell me her dear friend Ms Ling Leng, a well-known columnist, just published a new edition of her book Amores do Céu e da Terra (A Place with Love). The book, featuring the life of lower class people in Macao during the 1940–50s, reminds her my late grandmother’s teachings. Macao is a city with people of all kinds, nevertheless, grandmother always told her children to respect others regardless their backgrounds or occupations. I was surprised by my aunt’s genuine sharing because we seldom talk about her childhood.

I choose reading to satisfy my curiosity of the past. Most of the books I read on Macao history and literature are mostly published by Mainland Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese or even overseas publishers. Publications in Macao generally do not draw much attention, even the Macao Series, a recent long-running book series, is a collaboration between the Macao Foundation and Joint Publishing (H.K.).

In search of Macao publications, one has to be as sensitive and curious as a detective. When speaking of books, literature instantly pops up in my mind. Let us start with the Macau Literary Festival held in March. The navigation bar of the festival official website contains several items including “News”, “Programme”, “Guests”, “Exhibitions”, “Films”, “Concerts”, “The festival” and “Useful info”. Interestingly enough, the website does not cover one of the most used narrative forms of literature, i.e. books. If I did not visit the Livraria Portuguesa (Portuguese bookstore) or follow the Festival’s facebook page, I would have missed the announcement of the winners of the Third Short Story Competition (an event attached to the Festival) and the book launch of the winning stories and other writings.

The Livraria Portuguesa might shed some light to our investigation. The tall bookshelves on the ground floor of the bookstore are full of Macao-related publications, many of them are published by the Cultural Affairs Bureau and the Association of Stories in Macao (ASM).

Founded in 2005, ASM is a non-profit NGO publishing poetry, prose and fiction, etc. The Cultural Affairs Bureau has a large range of publications including literature, history, architecture, applied sciences, theses, cookbook, etc. Ling Leng’s Amores do Céu e da Terra mentioned in the beginning of the article is also one of the Bureau’s recent publications. The book was first published by Starlight Press in 1991. The Bureau chose this book for republication in 2015 and put it in the Colecção de Literatura Chinesa e Portuguesa (Chinese and Portuguese Literature Series), a bilingual series aims at promoting literature for both Chinese and Portuguese speaking cultures. 100 sonetos de Luís Vaz de Camões (100 sonnets of Luís Vaz de Camões) and Almas Transviadas (Misguided Souls) by Joe Tang, the winner of the First Macao Novel Competition are also in the series.

Confrontation and Interchange: Review of Rare Books of the Macao Central Library is another Bureau’s publication that catches my eye. In the book, Dr. Stella Lee introduces 114 titles in the rare book collection, including Robert Morrison’s A Dictionary of the Chinese Language (1882), which was written, published and printed in Macao. This nicely printed hardcover book is an essential reading material for those who are interested in history of publishing of Macao.

The Cultural Affairs Bureau’s publications are only available in a few bookstores in town. Some art books are also sold in government operated exhibition venues and museums. But if you want to get the latest information of local publications, what you need to do is to surf the Internet frequently.