Lunch Table Talk: Michelle Aung Thin

MICHELLE AUNG THIN was born in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar), she grew up in Ottawa and currently lives in Melbourne, Australia, where she teaches writing at RMIT University (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology). Her first novel, The Monsoon Bride, (Text 2011) was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. She was the first Asialink writer in residence to Myanmar in 2014 (funded by Arts Victoria). In 2017, she was the National Library of Australia Creative Arts Fellow (supported by the Eva Kollsman and Ray Mathew Trust).

Her current project, Love, Loss and the Last Days of Rangoon, supported by the Australia Council, is a book about returning to the city where she was born but was not allowed to visit until recently due to the policies of Myanmar’s military junta. Her most recent novel, Hasina (Allen & Unwin 2019) is a fictional account of the Rohingya genocide from the perspective of a young girl. It will be published as Crossing the River Farak by Annick in Canada and the USA in 2020.