Unpolished Gem cover art

Unpolished Gem

My Mother, My Grandmother, and Me

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Unpolished Gem

By: Alice Pung
Narrated by: Melissa Chambers
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £21.99

Buy Now for £21.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

"This story does not begin on a boat." So commences Alice Pung’s memoir. This is an original take on a classic story - how a child of immigrants moves between two cultures. In place of piety and predictability, however, Unpolished Gem offers a vivid and ironic sense of both worlds. It combines the story of Pung’s life growing up in suburban Footscray with the inherited stories of the women in her family - stories of madness, survival, and heartbreak. Original and brave, this is a girl’s own story that introduces an unforgettable voice and captures the experience of Asian immigrants to Australia.

©2006 Alice Pung (P)2012 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Emigration & Immigration Social Sciences Women Witty Heartfelt

Critic reviews

"There’s something striking on every page of Unpolished Gem." (Helen Garner)
"Pung has a seductive way with language, an eye for telling detail, and a gift for comic dialogue." ( Australian Book Review)
"... an intelligent and touching insight into the culture-hopping that so many first-generation Australians undertake." ( The Herald Sun)
No reviews yet