Description

An Australian professor, negotiating middle age as a bachelor, and a Chinese girl student, negotiating the hazards of freedom in Australia, are the central characters in this study of the human dimension in the Asian Century. Their tender, thoughtful, unfulfilled relationship is set against a background of China's rising power and Australia's struggle to find a response, while remaining an ally of the United States, all played out in and around a class of international and local students in a Melbourne university. Author Biography: Australian writer-diplomat Bruce Grant has written ten works of non-fiction, three novels, essays and short stories published in The New Yorker, Mademoiselle, Playboy, Cleo, The Bulletin, Quadrant, Overland and Meanjin. His first book, Indonesia, became a classic. A Young Woman From China is one of three novels on the theme "Love in the Asian Century." He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Australian High Commissioner in New Delhi, foundation chairman of the Australia-Indonesia Institute, chairman of the Australian Dance Theatre, chairman of the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, president of Melbourne's International Film Festival and president of Melbourne's International Arts Festival. His essay "The Great Pretender at the Bar of Justice," written at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, was published in The Best Australian Essays 2002. "Bali: The Spirit of Here and Now," written after the October 2002 bombings, was published in The Best Australian Essays 2004. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) by Monash University in December 2003 and distinguished Fellow by the Australian Institute of International Affairs in 2010.