Michelle Aung Thin

Michelle Aung Thin is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Media and Communication, teaching in the discipline of Communication, Advertising and in the field of Creative Writing. She is an international award winning novelist and copywriter. Her critically acclaimed first novel, The Monsoon Bride (Text 2011), was shortlisted for the influential Victorian Premier Literary Awards as an unpublished manuscript. Her latest novel, Hasina (Allen & Unwin 2019), sold into the USA and Canada, where it was released as Crossing the Farak River (Annick, 2020) and won the Freeman Prize, the South Asia Book Award as well as being listed as an Outstanding International Book in the USBBY awards. Her novel in progress, about the hidden histories of colonial Burma, is supported by the Australia Council as well as a National Library of Australia Creative Fellowship. Her work contributes to the discipline of creative writing by filling a gap in representation of mixed-race, cross-cultural and cosmopolitan experience in colonial Burma, contemporary Myanmar, Australia and Canada. Her writing is studied in Australian schools at middle-grade and VCE levels.

As a scholar, Dr Aung Thin examines literary representation of mixed-race and other forms of hybrid identities, interrogating sites of cultural meaning such as 'skin' and 'home'.  She is an expert in the cultural history of colonial mixed-race groups such as the Anglo-Burmese, Anglo-Indians, Zerbadi and other Asian diaspora in cosmopolitan Rangoon. She has expert knowledge of contemporary Myanmar literary production. She was the first Asialink creative resident to Myanmar, funded by Creative Victoria, where she developed strong, lasting relationships with local artists and writers, including the internationally esteemed and prize-winning visual artist, Aye Ko. She has taught bilingual courses in writing in Mandalay and Yangon, collaborating with local artists and translators . She has been a guest at southeast Asia and Australia's most prestigious literary festivals and events. Her cultural and ethical sensibility and personal connection to the region enable her to offer insight into cross-cultural communication and creative practices. She has written about ethics and the process of writing difference for western readerships. Recently, Dr Aung Thin has extended her expertise to southeast asian literatures and literary as well as other creative communities.