Joint Publishing
Joint Publishing (Chinese: 三聯書店) is a book store chain and publisher founded at Queen's Road Central in Hong Kong on 18 October 1948. It is one of major book store chains in Hong Kong. Currently a subsidiary company of Sino United Publishing (Holdings) Limited.
The book store was merged from three leading publishers and book stores, (生活書店), (讀書出版社) and (新知書店) , at Shanghai in 1948. The newly merged book store was closely related to the communist government at that time. Many intellects stayed in Hong Kong and publishing in Hong Kong was its main business. It moved its headquarters to Peking with many key staff in March 1949. Joint Publishing (HK) was its subsidiary.
After the establishment of People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949, the book store located in Hong Kong was mainly responsible for publishing materials from mainland China. While the main branch in mainland China was nationalized. After the coming of Cultural Revolution in mainland China in 1966, the publishing business in mainland China was seriously damaged and the book store in Hong Kong earned its survival by republishing old books.
With several re-locations, it finally settled in current premises in Queen Victoria Street in May 1971 and opened a retail store at the ground floor in July 1974.
The Cultural Revolution ended in 1976 and was soon replaced with economic reform. In 1978 the book store in Hong Kong decided to publish their own books independently and join with other international publishers. It initially targeted in Chinese culture, literature and art and later concentrated Hong Kong topics and social science. Its direction was proved successful and the book store aggressively opened branches in Hong Kong.
Outside Hong Kong, the book store expanded to various cities in mainland China by joint venture, and five stores in North America, specifically in Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
In mainland China, Beijing's SDX Joint Publishing Company (生活·讀書·新知三聯書店) and Shanghai Joint Publishing Company (上海三聯書店) were found in 1986 but are not currently related to the Hong Kong company.
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External links
- Official website (Chinese)
- History on official website (Chinese)
- 長灘急流，舵穩帆高──寫在生活書店成立70週年 (Chinese)