Member Loginmenu
Room for a Stranger

Room for a Stranger

Melanie Cheng

  • awardShortlisted, NSW Multicultural Award, NSW Premier's Literary Awards, 2020
  • awardLonglisted, Literary Fiction Book of the Year, Australian Book Industry Awards, 2020
  • awardLonglisted, Booktopia Favourite Australian Book, 2020
  • awardLonglisted, Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2020
  • By the winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction, 2018.

    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. 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.

    INTERVIEWS and REVIEWS

    ABC News 
    ABC News: Best winter reads of 2019 
    ABC Radio Melbourne: Afternoons
    (1:07:00)
    ABC Radio National: The Bookshow (0:24:00)  
    ABC Melbourne: The Friday Revue
    ABC Radio National: The Book Show
     
    2SER: Final Draft 
    3CR 
    3RRR:  Backstory (0:15:00)
    Adelaide Review 
    Age
     
    Apple podcast 
    Better Reading 
    Books + Publishing
     
    Domain.com.au Book Clu
    Guardian 
    Guardian:
    Bookmark This 
    Harper’s Bazaar
    : 15 Books to Devour This Winter 
    Homeshare Australia & NZ Alliance 
    Kill Your Darlings       
    Kill Your Darlings podcast 
    Liminal 
    Melbourne Writers Festival podcast 
    Monthly 
    Overland: July in Fiction 
    Radio NZ 
    Reading Matters 
    Readings 
    Readings: Melbourne in Fiction    
    Saturday Paper
    Sydney Morning Herald 
    Sydney Morning Herald
    : Mistakes, and the importance of admitting them (op ed)  
    Weekend Australian
    ($)
    Westerly Magazine 
    Wheeler Centre: Double Booked Club (YouTube video – autoplay)

    Melanie Cheng
    About the Author

    Melanie Cheng is a writer and general practitioner. She was born in Adelaide, grew up in Hong Kong and now lives in Melbourne. Her debut collection of short stories, Australia Day, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2016 and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction in 2018. Room for a Stranger,...

    Read Moreright
    Extent:
    288pp
    Format:
    Paperback
    Text publication date:
    1 December 2020
    ISBN:
    9781922268815
    AU Price:
    $22.99
    NZ Price:
    $26.00
    Australian
    starstarstarstarstar
    starstarstarstarstar
    Loading Rating
    Praise for Melanie Cheng
    andRoom for a Stranger

    ‘Melanie Cheng is doing the most difficult, most unfashionable thing: writing about the ordinary lives of ordinary people. Her accomplishment is catching the tremors of their uniqueness and, by underlining this, insisting that everyone is interesting. Being human is in itself extraordinary…This is an impressive and quietly significant book.’

    ‘My god, this was a joy to read. Every year there’s an Australian novel everyone endlessly passes around and recommends because they bloody love it so much, and this is going to be 2019’s. Room for a Stranger explores the high stakes of quiet moments, reveals the beauty of unlikely connections and shows how the antidote to shame is always compassion. After reading this impossible-to-put-down novel, Melanie Cheng is quickly becoming my favourite Australian writer.’

    ‘[Room for a Stranger] is beautifully done. Melanie Cheng’s unaffected wisdom is just delightful. You never feel she has an axe to grind or an agenda to push. She may not set out to change the world but the warmth of her affection for lonely people will help to do just that.’

    ‘This scrupulously written, compassionate novel delivers a surprisingly powerful emotional punch as the two characters tentatively negotiate their lives together in today’s city.’

    ‘The winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction (2018), Melanie Cheng offers up a tender tale of an elderly Australian woman who takes in a boarder.’

    Other editions ofRoom for a Stranger