Lam Wing-kee, the founder of Causeway Bay Books, died in Taipei this week. He was 70. The cause, as reported, was cancer.

The record is worth stating plainly. His Causeway Bay shop sold political titles that were not available on the mainland. In late 2015 he went missing, one of five men connected to the bookshop who disappeared that year, and he resurfaced months later in mainland custody, where he delivered a televised confession to arranging illegal book sales across the border. At a Hong Kong press conference in June 2016, after his return, Lam said the confession had been scripted and made under duress. In 2019 he moved to Taiwan, and in 2020 he reopened Causeway Bay Books in Taipei, where he kept working until his death.

He is survived by the store he rebuilt. The titles his original shop carried are still not stocked in Hong Kong bookshops.