Asian - Australians have often been written about by outsiders, as outsiders. In this collection, compiled by award - winning author Alice Pung, they tell their own stories with verve, courage and a large dose of humour. These are not predictable tales of food, festivals and traditional dress. The food is here in all its steaming glory - but listen more closely to the dinner - table chatter and you might be surprised by what you hear. Here are tales of leaving home, falling in love, coming out and finding one's feet. A young Cindy Pan vows to win every single category of Nobel Prize. Tony Ayres blows a kiss to a skinhead and lives to tell the tale. Benjamin Law has a close encounter with some angry Australian fauna, and Kylie Kwong makes a moving pilgrimage to her great - grandfather's Chinese village. Here are well - known authors and exciting new voices, spanning several generations and drawn from all over Australia. In sharing their stories, they show us what it is really like to grow up Asian, and Australian. Contributors include: Shaun Tan, Jason Yat - Sen Li, John So, Annette Shun Wah, Quan Yeomans, Jenny Kee, Anh Do, Khoa Do, Caroline Tran and many more.

Young writers have historically played a pivotal role in shaping autobiographical genres and this continues into the graphic and digital texts which characterise contemporary life writing. This volume offers a selection of pertinent case studies which illuminate some of the core themes which have come to characterise autobiographical writings of childhood, including: cultural and identity representations and tensions, coming into knowledge and education, sexuality, prejudice, war, and trauma. The book also reveals preoccupations with the cultural forms of autobiographical writings of childhood and youth take, engaging in discussions of archives, graphic texts, digital forms, testimony, didacticism in autobiography and the anthologising of life writing. This collection will open up broader conversations about the scope of life writing about childhood and youth and the importance of life writing genres in prompting dialogues about literary cultures and coming of age. This book was originally published as a special issue of Prose Studies.

Marcus Didius Alexander Postumus is a special boy. He is twelve, or perhaps eleven. He has two mothers and various possible fathers, so he worries who will take care of him. He is self-confident yet vulnerable, intelligent yet sinister. He knows not many people like him. When his birth mother, Thalia the snake-dancer, takes him to live with her troupe of exotic performers, Postumus sees it as useful experience even though it involves him mucking out menagerie cages. No one anticipates how much havoc he will wreak. On his first day a tragedy occurs. No one else cares, so Postumus decides he alone must solve this crime and impose retribution on the guilty. As son and brother to the famous investigators Falco and Albia, he knows murder is punished by execution. Postumus single-mindedly sets out to accomplish this, sidetracked by nothing, not even a rehearsal of Falco's legendary play, The Spook Who Spoke...

An unforgettable collection of short fiction, poetry and comic art from Australia and beyond . . . A boy who tries to fly, a cricket game in a refugee centre, a government guide to kissing, the perils of hunting goannas, an arranged marriage, an awkward blind date, a girl who stands on her head, an imprisoned king and a cursed Maori stone . . . Including- James Roy * Tanveer Ahmed * Michael Pryor * Ursula Dubosarsky * Sonya Hartnett * Doug MacLeod * Oliver Phommavanh * Brenton McKenna * Tara June Winch * Sudha Murty * Oodgeroo

Lindsey Davis has received the Crime Writer's Association Lifetime Achievement Award for her two immortal series of detective novels featuring Marcus Didius Falco and his adopted daughter, Flavia Albia. She is regarded as the finest living novelist of Ancient Rome. Here, for the first time in book form, are four novella-length stories written to illuminate her unparalleled output of the last 30 years. The Bride from Bithynia tells the story of Aelia Camilla who travels 1000 miles to Britain to marry Gaius Flavius, a Roman officer. But their relationship struggles, then the province explodes in the Boudican Revolt. Now, it will be up to Aelia to save herself from the conflagration. The Spook Who Spoke Again. Marcus Didius Alexander Postumus is an odd boy who has known two families. That of Marcus Didius himself and his actual birth mother, Thalia the Snake Dancer. Things begin to unravel quickly when he decides to emulate his adopted father and investigate a death in Thalia's troupe of exotic performers. Vesuvius by Night. Two men share a room but seldom meet. Nonius is a pimp and part time thief who operates at night, Larius is a fresco painter who dreams of artistic greatness by day. When the volcano erupts, one will begin looting hastily abandoned villas, the other will do anything he can to save himself and his family. Invitation to Die. When the Emperor Domitian invites the entire senatorial class to a banquet to honour the recent war dead, many think he intends to take revenge on his enemies. When the Camillus brothers enter the black-painted hall where the feast is being held and see their names engraved on monumental stones, they fear they will not survive the night... Four pivotal events, fact and fiction. Four stories which allow Davis's much-loved characters new space and the opportunity to take personal roles in tense situations, with moving results. They face villainy, tragedy, accident, confusion and fear - but each story is told with the wry humour, and underpinned by human wisdom, courage and love.

Petronius Longus, captain of the Aventine watch and Falco's oldest friend, has finally nailed one of Rome's top criminals. Under Roman law, citizens are not imprisoned but are allowed "time to depart" into exile outside the Empire. One dark and gloomy dawn, Petro and Falco put the evil Balbinus aboard a ship. But soon after, an outbreak of robbery and murder suggests a new criminal ring has moved into Balbinus's territory. Petro and Falco must descend into the underworld of Vespasian's Rome to investigate.

Well this is the fifth volume of short stories, and some may ask why he doesnt just pull his finger out and write a proper novel. But he figures he is being novel, doesnt have the brain to concentrate enough to achieve a novel, and realises possibly just where his strengths and weaknesses lie. So go and sit on the toilet if you need to hang shit on him. Besides, he is a lazy prick.

A glimpse into the inner lives of psychiatrist Dr Ahmed's patients in the melting pot of outer Sydney. The stories vary from closet gay Muslims, to health food fundamentalists. It is an account of the modern condition viewed through the microcosm of the consulting room. Funny, insightful, heartbreaking and inspiring, this gripping book will entertain and challenge. ____________________________________ A terrific book here full of insight, information and highly interesting people...gives the book a warm and beating heart. This is a very important book...an insight into the fantastic variety of human responses to adversity. -- Gabrielle Lord, best-selling author Society is stretching the definition of mental health. As Tanveer notes, mental health has been equated with emotional distress. We are changing our view of trauma, seeking counsellors for all occasions. What's going on? Tanveer's case studies illuminate these trends. But readers will find them interesting for their own sake, stories of humanity. His book is nothing less than an account of how we live now: from Mujahideen to Mcmansions. -- Bob Carr, former NSW Premier Tanveer Ahmed's Fragile Nation comes as revelation to me. I have following his writing for many years and have always been impressed by his knowledge, valuable insights and willingness to express unpopular truths. But I was riveted by his stories of the people he cares for as a psychiatrist working in Western Sydney: angry white men, alienated youth seduced by Islam, damaged refugees, the children of tiger mothers. Amazing people revealed with sensitivity and candour, blessedly free of the ideological claptrap that often captures the saintly souls who work in the helping professions. Here's to Tanveer Ahmed - Australia's Theodore Dalrymple. -- Bettina Arndt, author and clinical psychologist. Dr Ahmed argues clearly and forcefully for a less mechanistic and bureaucratic psychiatry, which harms our culture and society as well as individuals. His book will be unwelcome in the very circles where it is most needed. --Theodore Dalrymple, UK Psychiatrist and Author This is a fantastic read. Fragile Nation offers a compelling account of the way that culture, morality and psychology intersect and influence individual behaviour in a transnational world. -- Frank Furedi, author and emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, United Kingdom