Alice Pung

Author, Journalist, Lawyer and Educator

About Me

Alice Pung is an award-winning author, journalist, lawyer and educator from Melbourne. Her non-fiction books Unpolished Gem, Her Father’s Daughter and Growing Up Asian in Australia have been set texts at schools and universities all around Australia and the US. She is a frequent contributor to the Monthly, Good Weekend and the Age. In 2015, Alice was awarded Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelist of the Year for her latest book Laurinda. Alice has been a judge of the Walkley Awards for Journalism as well as the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards.

In her capacity as a lawyer, Alice has a strong interest in human rights and workplace relations. Alice has been on ABC’s Big Ideas program, speaking against bigotry and proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act.

Alice’s passion is in education: she has worked for eleven years in the tertiary sector and is the current Artist-in-Residence at Janet Clarke Hall, the University of Melbourne. She has given guest lectures at Peking University, Vassar College, Brown University, the University of Iowa, the University of Bologna and the University of Milano, among other places. In 2010, Alice was selected by the US Department of State as one of ten writers from around the world to participate in their Fall and Recovery tour of disaster and conflict sites in America.

Alice is also an Ambassador to the 100 Story Building and Room to Read, as well as Les Twentyman’s Twentieth Man Fund.

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