But with each step she takes she feels the sharp tug of invisible threads: the love and worry of her parents, who want more than anything to keep her from harm. In addition to being an Australia Day Ambassador, Alice is an ambassador for the Les Twentyman Foundation, the 100 Story Building and Room to Read organisations that support the most marginalised and disadvantaged youth around Australia and the world. Winner, 2011 Western Australian Book Awards At twenty-something, Alice is eager for the milestones of adulthood: leaving home, choosing a career, finding friendship and love on her own terms. Alice is the oldest of four - she has a brother, Alexander, and two sisters, Alison and Alina. There she conducts research into matters of minimum wage and pay equity. Alice’s father, Kuan - a survivor of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime - named her after Lewis Carroll’s character because after surviving the Killing Fields, he thought Australia was a Wonderland. She is a qualified lawyer and works in legal research for the Fair Work Commission. Alice is the current artist-in-residence at the University of Melbourne’s Janet Clarke Hall.

She has given lectures at universities, including Vassar College, Brown University, Peking University and the University of Milan. Alice Pung: When I was younger, I used to think that I didn’t want to die without accomplishing certain goals. for the milestones of young womanhood: leaving home, choosing a career, finding friendship and love on her own terms.

Her latest novel, One Hundred Days, is out in June. Her award-winning books are studied in schools in Australia and overseas and include Unpolished Gem, Her Father's Daughter and Laurinda.Īlice was born in Melbourne, the daughter of Chinese-Cambodian refugees, and grew up in Footscray and Braybrook. The Melbourne-based author, 40, wrote the bestselling memoirs Unpolished Gem and Her Father’s Daughter and the award-winning young adult novel Laurinda.

The author of Her Fathers Daughter and Unpolished Gem, and the editor of Growing up Asian in Australia, Pungs. Alice Pung is an internationally-acclaimed author and journalist who has published work in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Age, The Monthly and The Australian. Alice Pung is a Melbourne writer and lawyer.

Her Father's Daughter by Alice Pung