In Other Words is OzAsia Festival’s forum for conversations about Australia’s engagement with Asia, and a dedicated showcase for Asian and Asian Australian writers and thinkers.
Over two fascinating days, novelists, performers, journalists, historians and playwrights came together to discuss topics as varied as power, identity, community, grief, familial love, shopping malls, ghosts, snacks, resistance and, of course, revenge.
Program Curator: Laura Kroetsch
Guest Curators: Benjamin Law and Roanna Gonsalves
Content Warning: In Other Words discusses political issues, personal moments of connection, and deeply felt experiences. This includes discussion of racism, domestic violence, childhood trauma and sexual abuse. Please refer to content warnings on individual sessions and if any content has raised issues for you please contact Lifeline on 131114.
Sujit Sivasundaram
Moderator: Laura Kroetsch
Join celebrated historian Sujit Sivasundaram on a fascinating voyage around the global south, from the Bay of Bengal to the Tasman Sea as he seeks to reconsider the age of revolution: 1789 and 1848. Told from the perspective of indigenous and non-Euro...
Ruth Ozeki
Moderator: Laura Kroetsch
Novelist, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest Ruth Ozeki’s new novel The Book of Form and Emptiness tells the story of Benny Oh, a boy who discovers he can hear voices coming from objects after the death of his father. Seeking some quiet, Benny hides out in the...
James Oaten and Michael Smith
Moderator: Peter Greste
Michael Smith was one of the last Australian journalists to leave China, an experience he recounts in his memoir, The Last Correspondent. James Oaten left India on an Australian repatriation flight earlier this year. They have both had to con...
Content Warning: this session contains the use of coarse language and discusses experiences of racism. If this content has raised any issues for you please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Expressions like ‘Asian invasion’ and ‘yellow peril’ are all too familiar to anyone living in Australia, espec...
Content Warning: this session discusses experiences of domestic violence, intimate partner homicide and intergenerational trauma. If this content has raised any issues for you please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Larissa Behrendt and Amani Haydar
Moderator: Tory Shepherd
Award-winning novelist ...
Please note that due to unforeseen circumstances, today’s 3:45pm ACDT session 'India Now with Barkha Dutt' will be replaced with an in conversation session with Laura Kroetsch and journalist James Oaten.
Each year the Asian Australian Leadership Summit presents the 40 Under 40 Most Influential Asian Australians Awards – an initiative that celebrates the accomplishments of Asian Australians and confronts Australia’s ‘bamboo ceiling’. At this session, 2020 overall winner, lawyer and human rights ac...
Evelyn Goh, Natasha Kassam and Geoff Raby AO
Moderator: Tory Shepherd
Australia takes its place in the Asia Pacific, its geographical home, with some reluctance. For this session three experts come together to talk about the region, in particular the implications of an increasingly powerful Chin...
Yashica Dutt
Moderator: Roanna Gonsalves
In her memoir Coming Out as Dalit, Yashica Dutt recounts her mother’s ambitions to overcome poverty by passing herself and her family off as Brahmin. Under these extremely stressful circumstances Dutt was a success, a well-educated professional, who didn’...
Adam Liaw and Hetty McKinnon
Moderator: Benjamin Law
Food begins at home, and in this session two celebrity chefs talk about family meals. In To Asia, With Love Hetty McKinnon celebrates the food of her Chinese childhood in Australia. In Tonight’s Dinner Adam Liaw once again makes Asian food ea...
Paige Clark and Jamie Marina Lau
Moderator: Jennifer Wong
In Paige Clark’s story collection She is Haunted a widow dresses as her husband in order to avoid grieving, and another bargains with God to keep her unborn child. In Jamie Marina Lau’s Gunk Baby a girl opens a healing centre in a mall, l...
Dorcas Tang, Michelle Aung Thin and Wing Kuang
Moderator: Jacqueline Lo
There is a particular place where racism and sex collide – too often it is in ideas about Asian women’s bodies. Michelle Aung Thin is a novelist and academic who has written about Myanmar, women and refugees. Dorcas Tang is ...
Content Warning: this session discusses experiences of childhood trauma including sexual abuse. If this content has raised any issues for you please contact Lifeline on 131114.
Mimi Kwa and Ruhi Lee
Moderator: Sonya Feldhoff
Mimi Kwa’s memoir House of Kwa opens as Mimi receives a letter advisin...
Quifan Chen
Moderator: Marc Fennell
With The Waste Tide, Chen Qiufan established himself as a science fiction superstar and sometimes oracle. The novel is a future thriller set in a world of electronic waste. AI 2041 – a collaboration with former head of Google China, KaiFu Lee – explores how AI...
Marc Fennell, Sunil Badami, Eugenia Flynn and Anchuli Felicia King
Team Captains: Benjamin Law & Jennifer Wong
Having begun the weekend by placing Australia firmly in the Asia Pacific, we close the inaugural In Other Words with a rousing debate. While we may know where Australia lives geograph...
Ruth Ozeki
Moderator: Laura Kroetsch
Novelist, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest Ruth Ozeki’s new novel The Book of Form and Emptiness tells the story of Benny Oh, a boy who discovers he can hear voices coming from objects after the death of his father. Seeking some quiet, Benny hides out in the...
