Unpolished Gem

'This story does not begin on a boat.'So commences Alice Pung’s memoir. This is an original take on a classic story – how a child of immigrants moves between two cultures. In place of piety and predictability, however, Unpolished Gem offers a vivid and ironic sense of both worlds. It combines the story of Pung’s life growing up in suburban Footscray with the inherited stories of the women in her family – stories of madness, survival and heartbreak.Original and brave, this is a girl’s own story that introduces an unforgettable voice and captures the experience of Asian immigrants to Australia.

Winner of Australian Book Industry Award (ABIA) Newcomer of the Year 2006 Short-listed for Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2006 Short-listed for NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2006

"There’s something striking on every page of Unpolished Gem." -- Helen Garner, award-winning author of The Spare Room
"Pung has a seductive way with language, an eye for telling detail and a gift for comic dialogue." -- Australian Book Review
"... an intelligent and touching insight into the culture-hopping that so many first-generation Australians undertake." -- The Herald Sun

Alice Pung’s first book, Unpolished Gem, won the Australian Book Industry Newcomer of the Year Award and was nominated for the Victorian and New South Wales premiers’ literary awards. She edited the anthology Growing Up Asian in Australia and her work has appeared in the Monthly, Good Weekend, the Age, The Best Australian Stories and Meanjin. Melissa Chambers is theatrically trained and her acting experience includes productions for Melbourne Theatre Company and Hothouse Theatre Company. She has extensive TV and radio experience, ranging from commercial voice-overs to plays.

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