Alice Pung | Granta

Alice Pung

Alice Pung is a writer and lawyer. She lives in Melbourne and this is her first book. It was shortlisted for two of Australia’s most popular prizes – the Booksellers’ Choice Award and the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award. http://alicepung.com/blog/

Publications

Unpolished Gem

Alice Pung

With a home-grown accent and an imported heritage, Alice Pung grew up straddling two worlds. By the time she was born, her family had already made the perilous journey from revolutionary China and the killing fields of Cambodia to their new home in a prosperous Australian suburb. But even as Alice dives head-first into life in the only country she’s ever known, she also understands her father’s wonder at the magical workings of escalators, her grandmother’s fervent blessings for the generosity of Father Government, and her mother’s determination to toil every hour of the day and night. Warm-spirited and wonderfully wise, Unpolished Gem is a vibrant, irreverent portrait of the foreigner’s fumbles, the everyday successes and the bittersweet bonds that hold one small family together in a big new country.