Alice Pung, author of Unpolished Gem: my mother, my grandmother, and me, was a month away
from being born in 1980, when her mother, father, grandmother, and aunt arrived in Australia as
Cambodian emigrants, refugees, victims of the Khmer Rouge.
Nevertheless, this book is not about the atrocities of war, although some are mentioned. It is not
about grief over family members left behind, nor about the psychological fallout displaced people
experience when they lose everything, even though hints of the pain float to the surface of Pung’s
story now and again.
Rather, Unpolished Gem is the author’s clear articulation of the fears, yearnings, and,
ultimately, acceptance of the historical, familial, and multicultural dynamics playing upon the
heart and mind of an insecure, over-achieving, Cambodian-Australian girl, beloved by her grandmother
and misunderstood by her mother, who comes to appreciate that the three women are lovingly tied,
not as much by family and culture as by a common yearning for love and acceptance, not just of each
other, but also of themselves.
Pung’s voice rings true, her spare, powerful prose conveys the confusion, the hesitancy, the panic,
and, in the end, the resolution of the question, Who am I? with the lightness and strength akin to
the bamboo tree, and just as beautiful.
Pung is a Melbourne, Australia lawyer, and this is her first book. Surely, she has other stories
clamoring to be told. I, for one, will be eagerly awaiting them.