Australian Writers' Week Literary Lunch

Join us for a literary lunch at Capital M, brought to you by the 2010 Australian Writers' Week, an initiative of the Australian Embassy, Beijing. This is a chance to meet and hear from two outstanding Australian writers - Alexis Wright and Alice Pung.

Alice Pung was born in Melbourne to Chinese Cambodian parents. Her memoir, Unpolished Gem is a national bestseller and won the Australian Book Industry Newcomer Award 2007 and was shortlisted for numerous other prizes including the Victorian and NSW premiers' awards.
A lawyer by trade, she contributes regularly to publications such as Meanjin, the Age and the Monthly and is the editor of the popular anthology, Growing Up Asian in Australia. Pung has recently completed the International Writers Program at the University of Iowa and will publish her next book in 2010, which was conceived while on a writer's residency at the University of Peking in 2008.
Unpolished Gem was voted one of Victoria's top 5 summer reads in the State Library of Victoria's Summer Read program.

Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Her books include Grog War, a study of alcohol abuse in the outback town of Tennant Creek, and the novel Plains of Promise, which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize, the Age Book of the Year Award and the NSW Premier's Award for Fiction, and translated into French as Les Plaines de l'espoir. Her most recent novel, Carpentaria, won the prestigious Miles Franklin award in 2007, and is a surreal and bombastic epic, a blend of myth and scripture, farce and politics, teeming with larger than life characters. Carpentaria is set in the Gulf country of north-western Queensland, from where her people come.
Carpentaria won the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2007; Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction; Queensland Premier's Award for Fiction; ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year Award.

Menu

Starter

Fluffy Feta Fritters on green olive paste

with a warm salad of red tomatoes, green tomatoes and black olives

Mains

A saute of wild Yunnan Mushrooms served piled onto crispy polenta

Grilled Halibut with fresh asparagus, little potatoes, sauteed mushrooms & a fennel cream sauce

Chicken Saltimbocca with sage, Prosciutto and Risotto Milanese

Desserts to Share

M's Grand Dessert

Including one glass of house wine