Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Monday 14 May
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
Her essays and poems were already earning accolades from Rookie readers, but writer Jenny Zhang thought she was being catfished when Lena Dunham tweeted to say she loved her work. She wasn’t.
Dunham – the real Dunham – wanted Zhang to write the first book published by her new Random House imprint. The result, 2017’s Sour Heart, is a collection of short stories about Chinese-American girls and young women growing up in New York – the daughters of artists who fled the chaos of Mao’s China, only to wind up struggling to survive in a new country. Her stories traverse generations and continents, from public school in Queens to the streets of Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution.
To Zhang, candid and subversive humour is an important ingredient in writing about marginalised groups. Women and people of colour, she explains, must have the opportunity to tell stories that deal not only with struggle, but with absurdity and joy. Join Zhang for a bittersweet conversation at the Wheeler Centre in May, hosted by Brodie Lancaster.
Metropolis Books will be our bookseller at this event.
Featuring
Jenny Zhang
Jenny Zhang is the author of Sour Heart and My Baby First Birthday. She also writes for tv and film.
Brodie Lancaster
Brodie Lancaster is an author and essayist from Melbourne. Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, Vogue Australia, the Guardian and New York magazine. Her first book, the pop culture ...