- Asian Australian Writers
- Asian Australian Visual Arts
- Asian Australian Studies Selected Bibliography
[Please note that these Resource pages are currently being revised and updated]
The following is a list of Asian Australian writers, including a short biography and list of their major publications.
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MENA ABDULLAH was born at Bundarra in northern New South Wales. She was raised on a sheep property and gained her education at Sydney Girls' High School. For many years, she has been employed as an administrator at the CSIRO. Her short stories have been published in the Bulletin; in the Coast to Coast anthologies in the years 1956, 1958, 1960, 1962; and Two Ways Meet, edited by Louise Rorabacher (1963). Some of her better known stories are 'Grandfather Tiger', 'A Long Way', and 'Because of the Rusilla'.
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ADAM AITKEN is a Sydney writer, reviewer, and was Associate Poetry Editor for HEAT magazine. His second poetry collection, In One House, published by HarperCollins, was mentioned three times as a Best Book of 1996 in the review pages of The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald. The latest, Romeo & Juliet in Subtitles was shortlisted for the South Australian Arts Festival Awards and The Age Book of the Year. Adam lectures in the Writing and Cultural Studies Department, University of Technology Sydney and has also taught English in Indonesia. His research interests include postmodern poetics, Asian Australian writing and film. Adam holds a Doctorate in Creative Arts, a MA in Applied Linguistics and is currently working on his fourth collection of poetry.
Links: Adam Aitken's Homepage Blog: http://adamaitken.blogspot.com/
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DEWI ANGGRAENI gained a Master of Arts degree in Letters from the University of Indonesia and a Diploma of Education from La Trobe University in Melbourne where she settled. In Australia, she has worked as a technical editor, a teacher of English as a Second Languagee and also as the Australian correspondent for Tempo, a major news and current affairs magazine in Indonesia; as correspondent for the daily English language newspaper, The Jakarta Post; and for FORUM Keadilan.
Dewi has been a member of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW). In 1990, she received a Project Assistance Grant from the Victorian Ministry for the Arts. Her work is finely tuned to the different cultural sensitivities of Indonesia and Australia, and to the need, both in fiction and journalism, to find culturally correct ways of approaching her topics, especially in sensitive areas such as politics and sexual behaviour. Her book, Who Did This to Our Bali?, is a response, both personal and cultural, to the Bali bombings of 12 October 2002.
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Writer-performer MERLINDA BOBIS has received various awards and prizes for her prose, poetry and plays. Among them the Prix Italia; the Australian Writers' Guild Award and the Ian Reed Radio Drama Prize for Rita's Lullaby; the Steele Rudd Award for the Best Published Collection of Australian Short Stories; the Philippine National Book Award and the Judges’ Choice Award in the Bumbershoot Arts Festival, Seattle for White Turtle (Australian edition) / The Kissing (US edition); the Pamana Presidential Award; and the Philippine Balagtas Award. Her first novel Banana Heart Summer was short-listed for the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal and her poetry collection Summer Was A Fast Train Without Terminals for The Age Poetry Book Award. Her plays have been performed in Australia, Philippines, France, China, Thailand and the Slovak Republic. Her next novel The Solemn Lantern Maker is coming out in March 2008. She teaches creative writing at the University of Wollongong. She is originally from the Philippines.
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BRIAN CASTRO is the author of seven published novels and one collection of essays (Looking for Estrellita). He is the winner of the Australian/Vogel Literary Award (1982), The Age Fiction Prize (1991), the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Innovative Writing (1992), the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Fiction (1992, 1993, 2003), the National Book Council ‘Banjo’ Prize (1997), and the NSW Premier's Award – Book of the Year (2004). He has held several Australia Council fellowships and a residency at Keesing Studio, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2000). Brian was born in Hong Kong in 1950 and is of Portuguese, Chinese and English descent. He arrived in Australia in 1961 and gained an MA from Sydney University in 1976. He has worked in Australia, France and Hong Kong as a teacher and writer, and for several years was a literary reviewer for Asiaweek magazine. He has collaborated with photo-artist Peter Lyssiotis on various projects. Brian currently resides in the Dandenong Ranges near Melbourne.
Critical writing:
Links: Brian Castro's Homepage
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ARLENE CHAI grew up in Manila and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Maryknoll College. She began working as a copywriter in 1976 and continued with this career after she emigrated to Australia. Although her immediate family settled in Sydney in 1982, Arlene alternated between Sydney and Manila for three years before permanently joining them in 1985. Seven years later she abandoned copywriting for twelve months to pursue other interests. With the encouragement of Bryce Courtenay she devoted herself to writing fiction on a full-time basis. Her best-selling first novel was short-listed for the Ethnic Affairs Commission Award at the 1995 NSW Premier's Literary Awards.
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TOM CHO is writing a collection of short fiction that explores the themes of identity and popular culture. He is developing this collection as part of his PhD in Professional Writing at Deakin University. His short stories have been published in Australia, USA, Canada, Japan, France, Italy and Malaysia. He has also received various grants and awards for his fiction, and is regularly invited to perform his work at festivals and other events in Australia. Tom has worked in artistic roles for a range of organisations, including Melbourne Fringe and the National Young Writers’ Festival. He currently works at Footscray Community Arts Centre. Tom is also a freelance producer of arts events and projects. His projects include the award-winning show Hello Kitty, which has been staged in Melbourne, Sydney, Lismore and Canberra.
Links: Tom Cho's Homepage
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DING XIAOQI was born in 1959 and grew up in China. She was a well-known author before coming to live in Victoria. In 1990 she was appointed Visiting Fellow in the Cinema Studies Division of La Trobe University. From 1990 to 1993 she was Artistic Director of the Chinese International Arts Festival in Melbourne. Her book of short stories, Maidenhome, was published by Hyland House in 1993. She has also published widely in Australian literature journals. In 1996, with Ouyang Yu , she co-founded Otherland, Australia's first Chinese-language literary journal. She has worked as a novelist, stage director, screenwriter, lyricist and poet with extensive credits in China. Much of her writing is focussed on everyday issues in the lives of women in contemporary Chinese society.
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YASMINE GOONERATNE was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She obtained a BA (Hons) degree from the University of Ceylon and a PhD from Cambridge University, both in English Literature. In 1953, she won the Senkadagala Memorial Prize for Original Verse. Her professional activities include university professor, literary critic, editor, biographer, bibliographer, novelist, essayist, short story writer and poet.
Yasmine taught English literature at University of Ceylon from 1959-1972, and on emigrating to Australia in 1972 took up a position in the School of English and Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney, which conferred its first higher doctoral degree, Doctor of Letters (DLitt), on her in 1981. Her novels A Change of Skies and The Pleasures of Conquest were shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1991 and 1995 respectively. In 2002, she received the Raja Rao Award from the Samvad India Foundation, an international prize instituted to honour writers and scholars who have made an outstanding contribution to the literature of the South Asian diaspora. In December 1996, Yasmine donated her papers to the National Library of Australia as part of the Australian Manuscripts Archive.
Critical work:
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SUBHASH JAIRETH was born in Khanna, a small town in the Punjab. He speaks and publishes in three languages: Hindi, Russian and English. He has lectured in Geology at the University of Roorkee, India, and in Australia has worked as a research fellow in Geology at James Cook University, Townsville from 1988. With the assistance of Elizabeth Perkins, Subhash has translated some of his Hindi poems into English. He has also undertaken doctoral studies in Australian Literature at the Australian National University. Subhash is a poet with two published works: his first book, Before the Bullet Hit Me, is a collection of poems in Hindi which was published by Vani Prakashan in Delhi in 1994; his second book is Unfinished Poems for Your Violin which was published in 1996 by Penguin. The book is a threesome volume with a title "Conversations of Love" (with two other poets, Meredith Wattison and Gillian Hanscombe). Subhash has also written several critical articles addressing race and representation. He is based in Canberra, ACT.
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ADIB KHAN was born in Bangladesh. He is married and lives in Victoria. A teacher at Ballarat Grammar School, he first came to Australia in 1973 to do post-graduate studies at Monash University. Adib is the winner of the 1995 Commonwealth Writers Prize for a first work of fiction, and has been shortlisted and won many other Australian literary awards (including shortlisting on the Commonwealth Writers Prize Best Book list for his most recent novel Homecoming). His interests include reading, philately, cooking, listening to Western and Indian classical music, chess and cricket.
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LAU SIEW MEI was born in Singapore in 1968 and migrated to Australia in 1994. She is now based in Brisbane, Queensland. Her first novel Playing Madame Mao was published in 2000 and her short stories have been broadcast on the BBC World Service and published in literary journals in Australia, USA, Canada and the UK. Playing Madame Mao was shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for fiction in this year's NSW Premier's Literary Awards and has been picked up by publishers in the UK and Greece where it will be translated. She was invited to appear at the inaugural Hong Kong writers festival 2001. During her 2001 Asialink residency in Malaysia, Lau researched Malaysia's traditional Peranakan culture, a unique mix of Malay and Chinese cultures for her second novel.
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SIMONE LAZAROO emigrated to Perth from Singapore with her family when she was two years old. She has been a teacher of Art and English at various schools and also worked for the WA Ministry of Education. Her first novel, The World Waiting To Be Made, is full of irony and bitter observations about the very white Australia in which the un-named narrator grew up. The historical backdrop for World is 1960s-1980s Australia during, and just after, the White Australia policy. The book won the TAG Hungerford Award for Fiction in 1993. Simone's second novel, The Australian Fiance, was published by Picador (Pan Macmillan) in 2000. Also in 2000, she won the prestigious David T.K. Wong Fellowship (UK). Simone is currently finishing her doctoral project and will be teaching creative writing at Murdoch U. She is also working on her third novel.
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SELINA LI DUKE was born and educated in Hong Kong. After graduating from university studies in English language and literature, and Chinese translation, she worked as a teacher, training officer, film censor, and university assistant registrar. She moved to Australia in 1983 with her Adelaide-born husband and expanded on her interest in writing, completing a Masters degree in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland, Brisbane. Her previously published works include children's picture books, short stories, and articles in anthologies and literary journals.
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MIRIAM LO was born in Canada and from age three to nineteen was raised in Singapore. Of Malaysian-Chinese descent through her father and Anglo-European Australian descent through her mother, she settled in Australia, gaining a BA from the University of Western Australia and an MA from the University of Queensland (UQ). She enrolled also at UQ as a postgraduate student for a PhD. Miriam has worked as a kindergarten teacher, research assistant to a merchant bank, student librarian, tutor, babysitter and poetry workshop convenor. She has published her poetry in many journals including Sidewalk, Journal of Australian Studies, Westerly and Hecate. Her first book of poems will soon be published by Five Islands Press.
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UYEN LOEWALD, who arrived in Australia in 1970 from Vietnam via the United States, has written much about her experiences in Vietnam as a child, at the outbreak of and during the war. Her 1987 autobiography, Child of Vietnam, contributes to ever more complicated definitions of what constitutes autobiography or "life-writing." Her short stories and poems are a mixture of attempts to express the cultural chasm between 'mainstream' Australia and a refugee’s view of life and living, detailing the diversity of Southeast Asian groups and their differences within difference. She also focuses on women’s situations within prohibitive traditional families and systems. She writes against the complicitous snobbery, often supported by government regulations, of her convent education in Vietnam, as well as the stereotypes of, and presuppositions about, a Vietnamese woman held by both Vietnamese and Western people.
Uyen has worked as a chef, social worker, migrant service administrator, crime researcher, and teacher. She has also been a member of the Multicultural Arts Advisory Committee of the Australia Council and an active member of the Women's Electoral Lobby.
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CHANDANI LOKUGE was born and educated in Colombo, Sri Lanka and came to Australia in 1987 on a Commonwealth Scholarship to complete her PhD at Flinders University. She currently teaches at Monash University, Victoria, where she is the Director of the Centre for Postcolonial Writing. She has a book of critically acclaimed short stories, Moth and Other Stories and has previously been published by Penguin with her contribution to The Penguin Book of Modern Sri Lankan Stories. Chandani's first novel If the Moon Smiled tells the story of Manthri, a young women in Sri Lankan who marvels at the promise of life and yearns for a future of fulfilled dreams. The novel was shortlisted for the 2001 NSW Premiers Prize for Best Novel.
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LILLIAN NG known as Ng Cheng Chye at birth, was born in Singapore and has lived in Australia since 1972. She practised her specialisation of gynaecology/obstetrics in London for eight years before coming to Australia, where she is still working as a gyn/ob specialist. Her first novel, Silver Sister, won the Australian Human Rights Awards for Literature and Other Writing Fiction Award in 1995.
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SATENDRA NANDAN was born in Fiji and completed his PhD at the Australian National University. He was a member of the Fiji Parliament from 1982 then moved to Canberra following the coups in the late 1980’s. Nandan’s publications include three volumes of poetry; one novel, The Wounded Sea; and 3 co-edited collections of essays. Nandan received an Asialink residency in 1999-2000 which provided him with the opportunity to work on a range of India-related projects: a novel set in New Delhi, Canberra and Suva which are a collection of semi-autobiographical pieces titled Indian Fragments; a book on the life and values of Mahatma Gandhi, and the Delhi section of his autobiography, Requiem for a Rainbow: An Indo-Fijian Journey. Satendra has been president of the Canberra branch of PEN International, a member of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) and a founding member of the Fiji Writer's Association (FWA). He also worked with others on a translation of Patrick White’s Tree of Man into Hindi, published in June 2001.
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DON O'KIM was born in Korea in 1938. He arrived in Australia in 1961 and was one of the first ever Asian-Australian authors published. Novels:
Drama:
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BETH YAHP was born in Malaysia in 1964 of Chinese-Thai-Eurasian parents and came to university in Sydney in 1984. She has published a number of short stories in several Australian literary journals, anthologies and newspapers. Her novel The Crocodile Fury won the Victorian Premier's Prize for First Fiction and the NSW Ethnic Affairs Commission Award. It has been published in Singapore, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and Greece. Beth has been based in Paris, and is working on a trilogy of novels around the themes of migration, inheritance, story-telling and thievery. She has recently been involved with the Elision Ensemble, working as a librettist with composer Liza Lim. They collaborated on the opera, Chang-O Flies to the Moon / Moon Spirit Feasting.
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SANG YE was born in 1955 in Peking and was a secondary school student when the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966. In China, he worked as an apprentice at an electrical engineering plant and studied mathematics before beginning a career as a journalist in 1980. He came to Australia in 1987-88 at the invitation of the Literature Board of the Australia Council and the Australia-China Council. He then returned to China but came to Australia permanently in 1989. He wrote regularly for publications in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, and his work has appeared in a number of Australian magazines. He currently resides in Brisbane, Queensland.
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