Jane Yang (The Lotus Shoes) talks to Alli Parker (At the Foot of the Cherry Tree) about bringing her ancestral stories from 19th Century China to life in fiction.

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JANE YANG was born in the Chinese enclave of Saigon and raised in Australia where she grew up on a diet of superstition and family stories from Old China. Despite establishing a scientific career, she is still sometimes torn between modern, rational thinking and the pull of old beliefs in tales passed down the family.

ALLI PARKER is a Japanese-Australian author and screenwriter, with a background in script editing and script co-ordinating. She lives on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. In 2023, her debut historical fiction novel, At the Foot of the Chery Tree, was published by HarperCollins Australia, a novelisation of the true story of Australia’s first Japanese war bride and Alli’s grandmother.