About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherBlack Inc.

ISBN-10186395158X

ISBN-139781863951586

eBay Product ID (ePID)16038588157

Product Key Features

Book TitleUnpolished Gem

Number of Pages288 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicCultural Heritage, Children's Studies, Emigration & Immigration, Customs & Traditions

GenreSocial Science, Biography & Autobiography

AuthorAlice Pung

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.9 in

Item Weight11.1 Oz

Item Length8.3 in

Item Width5.4 in

Additional Product Features

LCCN2006-462554

Dewey Edition22

Dewey Decimal305.8950945092

SynopsisThis story does not begin on a boat. Nor does it contain any wild swans or falling leaves. In a wonderland called Footscray, a girl named Alice and her Chinese-Cambodian family pursue the Australian Dream - Asian style. Armed with an ocker accent, Alice dives head-first into schooling, romance and the getting of wisdom. Her mother becomes an Aussie battler - an outworker, that is. Her father embraces the miracle of franchising and opens an electrical-appliance store. And every day her grandmother blesses Father Government for giving old people money. Unpolished Gem is a book rich in comedy, a loving and irreverent portrait of a family, its everyday struggles and bittersweet triumphs. With it, Australian writing gains an unforgettable new voice. 'This is a sophisticated and fiercely intelligent book.' Helen Garner 'A memoir so vivid that images from it linger behind your eyelids.' The Age 'Unpolished Gem is virtuoso storytelling.' The Australian, After Alice Pung's family fled to Australia from the killing fields of Cambodia, her father chose Alice as her name because he thought their new country was a Wonderland. In this lyrical, bittersweet debut memoir'already an award-winning bestseller when it was published in Australia?Alice grows up straddling two worlds, East and West, her insular family and the Australia outside. With wisdom beyond her years and a keen eye for comedy in everyday life, she writes of the trials of assimilation and cultural misunderstanding, and of the tender but fraught relationships between three generations of women trying to live the Australian dream without losing themselves. "Unpolished Gem" is a moving, vivid journey about identity and the ultimate search for acceptance and healing, delivered by a writer possessed of rare empathy, penetrating insight, and undeniable narrative gifts.

LC Classification NumberDU228.9.A73P86 2006