'Since her sister died, Meg has been on her own. She doesn’t mind, not really—not with Atticus, her African grey parrot, to keep her company—but after her house is broken into by a knife-wielding intruder, she decides it might be good to have some company after all.
'Andy’s father has lost his job, and his parents’ savings are barely enough to cover his tuition. He can't go home to Hong Kong -- but if he wants to graduate, he’ll have to give up his student flat and find a homeshare. Living with an elderly Australian woman is harder than he’d expected, though, and soon he’s struggling with more than his studies.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'I was a bookish child with a voracious hunger for stories. At the age of four, I would hold a tiny torch under my blanket at preschool during nap time so I could keep reading. I devoured all the books and demanded more. In those early days, the books that captured my imagination were about magical, impossible things: fairies, pixies, kindly moon folk. I pored over Australian kids’ books such as Animalia, Possum Magic and Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, losing myself in colourful illustrations of strange creatures, rather than anything rooted in the real.' (Introduction)
'Two strangers from completely different backgrounds with seemingly little in common thrown together, it’s a common enough set up for a novel. But in Room for A Stranger, Melanie Cheng uses that premise exceptionally well to create an undeniably pleasurable read, rich in texture and feeling.' (Introduction)
'While the towns and villages of Europe emptied into cities for the burgeoning opportunities and exploitations of the industrial revolution, the romantics countered with celebrations of nature and the individual. Literature has been fascinated by the figure of the isolated self, surrounded by millions, ever since.' (Introduction)
'While the towns and villages of Europe emptied into cities for the burgeoning opportunities and exploitations of the industrial revolution, the romantics countered with celebrations of nature and the individual. Literature has been fascinated by the figure of the isolated self, surrounded by millions, ever since.' (Introduction)
'Two strangers from completely different backgrounds with seemingly little in common thrown together, it’s a common enough set up for a novel. But in Room for A Stranger, Melanie Cheng uses that premise exceptionally well to create an undeniably pleasurable read, rich in texture and feeling.' (Introduction)
'I was a bookish child with a voracious hunger for stories. At the age of four, I would hold a tiny torch under my blanket at preschool during nap time so I could keep reading. I devoured all the books and demanded more. In those early days, the books that captured my imagination were about magical, impossible things: fairies, pixies, kindly moon folk. I pored over Australian kids’ books such as Animalia, Possum Magic and Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, losing myself in colourful illustrations of strange creatures, rather than anything rooted in the real.' (Introduction)
'Melanie Cheng’s debut novel Room for a Stranger (Text, May) follows the unlikely friendship between an elderly Australian woman and an international student from Hong Kong. Reviewer Carody Culver spoke to the author.' (Introduction)
'What does it mean to live in a place but never to fully belong to it? How does our capacity for intimacy alter when we are in exile? How do we forge an identity among haphazard collisions of cultures and histories?' (Introduction)
