Growing Up Asian in Australia

What a fascinating collection of stories! Growing up Asian in Australia is an anthology of reminiscences from prominent and not so prominent Asian-Australians who all have one thing in common - lives that have been affected, in one way or another, by the straddling of East and West.

Edited by award-winning writer Alice Pung, these are tales of being called racist names in the schoolyard, unpacking school lunches that smelled different from the other kids’, negotiating romantic relationships with people from other cultures and much, much more. Sunil Badami recalls being taunted about his name and wanting to be just Neil, Kylie Kwong writes about the first time she visited her ancestral home in China and Cindy Pan remembers her aspirations to win every single category of the Nobel Prize. Honest, unflinching and often extremely funny, these stories give voice to the many Asian-Australians that grew up here but often felt like they didn’t belong. My only criticism of this anthology would be that Alice Pung hasn’t put one of her own stories in!