Alice Pung

Alice Pung

OAM
Pung in 2012
Pung in 2012
Born1981 (age 42–43)
Footscray, Victoria, Australia
NationalityAustralian
EducationUniversity of Melbourne
Notable worksGrowing Up Asian in Australia
Unpolished Gem
Notable awardsNon-Fiction Prize in the 2011 Western Australian Book Awards; Australian Newcomer of the Year in the 2007 Australian Book Industry Awards
Website
alicepung.net

Alice Pung OAM (born 1981[citation needed]) is an Australian writer, editor and lawyer. Her books include the memoirs Unpolished Gem (2006),[1][2][3][4] Her Father's Daughter (2011) and the novel Laurinda (2014).

Pung is a practising solicitor. She has also worked as an art instructor, independent school teacher at primary and secondary schools, and is Artist in Residence at Janet Clarke Hall at the University of Melbourne.[5]

Life

Pung was born to ethnic Teochew Chinese parents from Cambodia.[6][7] Fleeing the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, her parents sought asylum in Australia in 1980.[8][7][6][9] Pung was named Alice after the protagonist of Alice in Wonderland, because her father saw Australia as a wonderland.[7][6] She was born in the suburb of Footscray in Melbourne and grew up in Braybrook.[10]

Pung attended five Melbourne schools,[8] including the Catholic junior girls school Christ the King College in Braybrook (now the junior girls campus of Caroline Chisholm Catholic College), Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School, and Mac.Robertson Girls' High School.[citation needed] Pung studied law at the University of Melbourne[citation needed] and works as a legal analyst.[11]

Writing career

Pung's first book, Unpolished Gem, won the 2007 Newcomer of the Year Award in the Australian Book Industry Awards.[12] Her follow-up memoir, Her Father's Daughter, was published in 2011.[13]

Her first book for young adults, Laurinda, was published in 2014. It was adapted for an American audience in 2016,[14] and a collection of high school students' stories inspired by the novel was published in 2016.[15] Pung has also written the Marly books for the Our Australian Girl children's series.

Pung attended the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa as a resident in 2009.[16] She is a regular writer for The Monthly on topics such as race discrimination, class, cultural stereotypes, and experiences of living in Melbourne, Victoria.[17]

In November 2020, the Melbourne Theatre Company announced that it will adapt Pung's novel, Laurinda, for the stage.[18]

Awards and recognition

In the 2022 Australia Day Honours Pung was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to literature.[19]

Unpolished Gem

  • Winner of the Australian Newcomer of the Year award in the 2007 Australian Book Industry Awards[12][3]
  • Shortlisted in the Australian Biography of the Year and Australian Book of the Year in the 2007 Australian Book Industry Awards
  • Shortlisted in the 2007 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[3]
  • Shortlisted in the 2007 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[3]
  • Shortlisted in the 2007 The Age Book of the Year Awards[3]
  • Shortlisted for the 2006 Colin Roderick Award
  • Shortlisted for the 2007 The Westfield/Waverley Library Award for Literature

Her Father's Daughter

  • Winner of the Non-Fiction Prize in the 2011 Western Australian Book Awards
  • Shortlisted in the 2012 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[20]
  • Shortlisted in the 2012 NSW Premier's Literary Awards[21]
  • Shortlisted in the 2012 Queensland Literary Awards

Laurinda

  • 2016 Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature (NSW Premier's Literary Awards)[22]

One Hundred Days

Millie Mak the Maker

Bibliography

Books

  • Unpolished Gem. (Black Inc., 2006)[26]
  • Growing Up Asian in Australia (Black Inc., 2008) (editor)
  • Her Father's Daughter. Black Inc. 2011.
  • Laurinda (Penguin Australia, 2014)[27] (published as Lucy and Linh in the United States, 2016[14])
  • Our Australian Girl: Meet Marly: Our Australian Girl, illustrated by Lucia Masciullo (Puffin, 2015)
  • Our Australian Girl: Marly's Business, illustrated by Lucia Masciullo (Puffin, 2015)
  • Our Australian Girl: Marly and the Goat, illustrated by Lucia Masciullo (Puffin, 2015)
  • Our Australian Girl: Marly Walks on the Moon, illustrated by Lucia Masciullo (Puffin, 2016)
  • My First Lesson: Stories Inspired by Laurinda (2016)[15]
  • John Marsden: Writers on Writers (2017)[28][29]
  • Close to Home (Black Inc., 2018)
  • One Hundred Days (Black Inc., 2021)[30]
  • Millie Mak the Maker, illustrated by Sher Rill Ng (HarperCollins, 2023)[31]

Articles

Critical studies and reviews of Pung's work

Her Father's Daughter (2011)

  • On, Thuy (September 2011). "Filial love song". Australian Book Review (334): 24.
  • Brewster, Anne (2017) Remembering Violence in Alice Pung's Her Father's Daughter: The Postmemoir and Diasporisation, Life Writing, 14:3, 313–325, doi:10.1080/14484528.2017.1328298

Growing Up Asian in Australia (editor, 2008)

  • Graham, Pamela (2013) Alice Pung's Growing up Asian in Australia: The Cultural Work of Anthologized Asian-Australian Narratives of Childhood, Prose Studies, 35:1, 67–83, doi:10.1080/01440357.2013.781412

Unpolished Gem (2006)

  • Ommundsen, Wenche (2010) Writing as Cultural Negotiation: Suneeta Peres da Costa and Alice Pung. In: Collett A., D’Arcens L. (eds) The Unsociable Sociability of Women's Lifewriting. Palgrave Macmillan, London.
  • D'Arcangelo, Adele. (2014) Unpolished Gem/Gemma impura the Journey from Australia to Italy of Alice Pung's Bestselling Novel. Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, [S.l.], v. 14, n. 1, June. ISSN 1833-6027. Available at: https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/JASAL/article/view/9877.

References

  1. ^ "Unpolished Gem". Booklist Online. Booklist. 1 December 2008. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  2. ^ "Unpolished Gem". Kirkus Reviews. Kirkus. 15 October 2008. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  3. ^ a b c d e Sullivan, Jane (20 August 2011). "Memories of relative unease". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  4. ^ Walker, Brenda (September 2011). "'Her Father's Daughter' by Alice Pung". Australia. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  5. ^ "Janet Clarke Hall – University of Melbourne – Tutors and Students". www.jch.unimelb.edu.au. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  6. ^ a b c Pung, Alice (7 December 2016). "Living With Racism in Australia". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  7. ^ a b c Cathy, van Extel (5 November 2014). "Alice Pung". Conversations with Richard Fidler. ABC. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  8. ^ a b Neill, Rosemary (8 November 2014). "Alice Pung recalls high school's hard lessons in first novel Laurinda". The Australian. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  9. ^ "Interview with Alice" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 September 2010. Retrieved 8 February 2010.
  10. ^ "Ms Alice Pung – Events at The University of Melbourne". events.unimelb.edu.au. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  11. ^ Felicity Nelson (3 November 2015). "'The law doesn't inspire me': author, lawyer Alice Pung". Lawyers Weekly. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
  12. ^ a b "History". Australian Book Industry Awards. Archived from the original on 31 July 2015. Retrieved 25 April 2017. Newcomer of the Year: Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung
  13. ^ "Her Father's Daughter". penguin.com.au. Penguin Books Australia. Archived from the original on 28 November 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  14. ^ a b Pung, Alice (2016). Lucy and Linh. New York: Penguin Random House. ISBN 978-0-399-55048-5.
  15. ^ a b "My First Lesson". penguin.com.au. Penguin Books Australia. Retrieved 15 May 2017.[permanent dead link‍]
  16. ^ "Alice PUNG | The International Writing Program". iwp.uiowa.edu. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  17. ^ "Alice Pung". The Monthly. 20 December 2013. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
  18. ^ "MTC to adapt Pung's 'Laurinda'". Books+Publishing. 27 November 2020. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  19. ^ "Australia Day Honours List" (PDF). The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia. 26 January 2022. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  20. ^ "Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2012". The Wheeler Centre. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  21. ^ "2012 – Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction". www.sl.nsw.gov.au. 24 September 2015. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  22. ^ "Winners announced for 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards". www.sl.nsw.gov.au. 16 May 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  23. ^ Harmon, Steph (23 June 2022). "Miles Franklin 2022: shortlist revealed for Australia's prestigious literary prize". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  24. ^ "Short List 2022". The Voss Literary Prize. 4 November 2022. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
  25. ^ "Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2024 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 15 August 2024. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
  26. ^ "Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung". penguin.com.au. Penguin Books Australia. Archived from the original on 28 November 2016. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  27. ^ "Laurinda by Alice Pung". penguin.com.au. Penguin Books Australia. Archived from the original on 28 November 2016. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  28. ^ "On John Marsden: Writers on Writers". penguin.com.au. Penguin Books Australia. Retrieved 15 May 2017.[permanent dead link‍]
  29. ^ "On John Marsden by Alice Pung". Black Inc. Books Australia. Black Inc. Books. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  30. ^ Wong, Yen-Rong (June 2021). "Yen-Rong Wong reviews 'One Hundred Days' by Alice Pung". Australian Book Review. Archived from the original on 1 June 2021. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  31. ^ "Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2024 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 15 August 2024. Retrieved 15 August 2024.