Alice Pung: Unveiling the humanity behind a literary luminary

Bestselling Australian author Alice Pung spoke with CoVE students about her novel ‘One Hundred Days’ and what it means to be a writer. Professional Writing and Editing student Wen Yee shares her experience as an attendee.

Alice Pung – writer, mentor, mother-of-three, part-time lawyer; how does she do it all? – exudes an affable air as she takes the stage at the front of the lecture theatre. As my fellow writer Katya so aptly puts, Pung ‘radiates humanity’.

Most of the attendees would know Pung as an RMIT Adjunct Professor and a frequent guest lecturer at our industry-famous Professional Writing and Editing course. Others would be familiar with her backlog of bestselling works and list of achievements (Order of Australia Medal recipient, Ethel Turner Prize winner, Miles Franklin Award shortlistee… the list goes on).

Yet, watching the stage from my seat half-hidden in the crowd, I am struck by the revelation that even our idols are, ultimately, just people like us.

Pung is a petite, soft-spoken woman; the sizeable stage should dwarf her, but the way her voice reverberates across the room makes her seem larger than life. She jokes about a defining experience of her adolescence being the movie Labyrinth and ‘David Bowie’s package’. The room bursts into laughter. I laugh along, even though as a 2000s baby I have never seen Labyrinth.

(I went home and googled said ‘package’. It’s indeed quite large.)

You wouldn’t know by the peals of laughter that Pung is here to discuss her most recent (and rather serious) novel, One Hundred Days. Following the success of Pung’s debut novel Laurinda, which was recently adapted into a stage play, One Hundred Days tells the story of a sixteen-year-old’s struggle with identity, autonomy and teenage pregnancy. The novel is set almost entirely within the confines of a cramped housing-commission flat – Pung calls her book a ‘chamber piece’: an intimate, character-driven exploration of the fine line between love and control.

Pung talks about how some authors tend to write books with a message or a ‘moral value’. But if a character is created simply to teach their audience a lesson, that character likely has ‘no heartbeat’. Pung instead encourages her audience to think of writing as investigating a question – the question in One Hundred Days, for instance, is at what point does love turn into control? Perhaps the answer will be out of reach even at the end of the book, but that’s perfectly fine. To be human is to not always have all the answers – and the books in which the characters seem fully human are the ones that endure the test of time.

“The books in which the characters are fully human are the ones that endure.”

It’s a lightbulb moment for me. At the end of the session, attendees crowd onstage for questions or an autograph. I make my way to the front and, trying to still my nervously tapping foot, I hold out a hand and introduce myself.

Pung’s eyes light up. At the end of it all … instead of shaking my hand, she gives me a hug.

Story: Wen Yee Ang

17 October 2023

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Alice Pung: Unveiling the humanity behind a literary luminary