Join us for a Lunar New Year Celebration and the launch of Ken Chan Family Murmurings, featuring artwork by Nancy Liang and Ben Yi-Yu Qin's A Lobster Scales the Shoals.

Family Murmurings is a collection of 10 interwoven fictional stories hewn from Ken Chan’s fragmented memories of childhood in Chinese-Australian family in 1950-60s Australia. Set principally in Sydney but also in Darwin, the stories explore the clashes, conflicts and vicissitudes that beset a fictional Chinese family.

A Lobster Scales the Shoals is a collection of modernist poetry and photography. It describes, from a perspective both intimate and estranged, Australian and Chinese Australian experiences of personality, community and culture.

From two different generations and with a combined experience of the enduring, varied and often fractious lived experience of Chinese immigrants to Australia, Ken and Ben explore in their books what it means to be an outsider in your own home.

Gabrielle Wang, Australian Children’s Laureate of 2022-23, will moderate a discussion between Ben and Ken about their works and the connections between their work and the evolving imaginary of Chinese peoples in Australia. Join us at this significant time in the Lunar calendar for a celebration of diverse Australian voices.

Free, but bookings are essential.

Please book here.