In the past twelve months Alice Pung's memoir, Unpolished Gem, has been shortlisted for a NSW Premier's Literary Award, a Victorian Premier's Literary Award, an "Age" Book of the Year Award, and won the Australian Book Industry Award for Best Newcomer. Not a bad year's work all in all. Now Deborah Bogle has interviewed the author for "The Courier-Mail".
We read of a mother who worked late into the night making jewellery, and of her struggle to adapt when she was forced to give it up due to ill health. "I've had older women, not necessarily migrants, who've said those were the best parts of the book, that they had had the same experience when their children grew up and went to university," Pung says. "It was really touching to realise that, despite the cultural differences and the specific neighbourhood of Collingwood, people had found some universal appeal in the book."
