Emma Pei-yin’s debut novel examines the brutal Japanese occupation of Hong Kong between 1941 and 1945, including the treatment of women and children.
I have no doubt the word ‘agency’ will flutter to people’s lips when they read this month’s books. But as I dislike that sort of jargon, I prefer to refer to ‘choice’ and ‘self-determination’.
Emma Pei-yin’s debut novel When Sleeping Women Wake (Hachette Australia 2025; cover design Hazel Lam) is an excoriating examination of occupation – in this case, the brutal Japanese occupation of Hong Kong between 1941 and 1945. It is an unflinching look at the behaviour of the occupying forces, and particularly their treatment of women and children.
At the same time, it is a moving family saga revealing the lives of its three strong heroines – Mingzhu, her companion (maid) Biyu and daughter Qiang.
Married at a young age by arrangement to a cruel and demanding husband, Mingzhu (first wife, senior in status but bullied by the concubine/second wife Cai) finds herself in the midst of the occupation and makes a strategic decision to work for the regime of the despotic and vicious Tanaka. She is determined to survive for the sake of her child.
Qiang and Biyu escape to the home of a friend Francine, but tragedy strikes and they are separated. Qiang finds her way to the ERC (the Resistance), while Biyu takes on the role of carer and then substitute daughter for Francine’s increasingly demented father Mr Gok.
The story is told in parts defined by each year of the occupation. We are given insight into the way the war is progressing and the inner workings of the resistance movement. We are also privy to acts of ferocious loyalty and courage.
Even the minor characters are beautifully fleshed out in this novel, their lives and intimate thoughts cogently conveyed through dialogue and historic detail.
Bitter ironies keep our heroines from their beloveds and from one another as they each play their role in the war. Ema Pei Yin deftly weaves a story of love and choice as much as one of geo-politics.
This was a story that cried out to be told, with its uncomfortable truth, its compassion and its clear new eyes. When our fictional women hope women of the future will have more choice and self-determination, the story shifts subtly from history to contemporary politics. This is clever writing indeed.
Maura Pierlot and Maya Bora’s Clutterbugs encourages children and their adults to make responsible decisions about waste.
On a smaller, but no less significant, domestic scale, Maura Pierlot and Maya Bora also tackle the matter of choice and conscious decision making. Clutterbugs (independently published by Big Ideas Press, Australia, 2025; design by Ozan Tortop) is decisively didactic, and joins a growing body of works for young readers who assume their capacity for decision making and thirst for knowledge from a very young age.
This book focusses on environmental issues – consumerism and waste. As Shakespeare pointed out through his troubled monarch, King Lear: ‘Even our basest beggars are in the least thing superfluous’ (Act 2, Scene 2). And so it is in the contemporary western world – but we are all over-abundant in worldly goods.
What we do with these goods and chattels when they break, no longer serve our purpose or lose favour with us, forms the core content of this book. The author takes direction from the anti-clutter movement and offers our fictional child a solution to finding a lost gift, and in the process, clearing up her overwhelmingly messy room. She uses the three bags technique – one for keepers, one for tosser-outers and one for recyclables/mendables/passer-onners.
The multiplicity of messages in this book and their colourful depiction by artist Maya Bora, will appeal to young readers, as they will doubtless recognise themselves in young Steff and her foibles. The artwork is complex and riddled with clues, all in the service of the message: ‘She wanted a lot – but she needed much less.’
Books like this encourage children (and their adults) to think carefully about the world they are creating and to make responsible decisions about the small environment they can control. Teachers, writers, librarians, thinkers and community leaders will welcome all the help they can get in communicating this anti-waste ethos.
Barbie Robinson is co-founder and a content creator for Living Arts Canberra, a not-for-profit media outfit supporting arts and community in the Canberra region and books worldwide through its website, podcast interviews and a 24/7 internet radio station at Living Arts Canberra.
