For our September book club, we’re reading House of Kwa in preparation for our chat with the author, Mimi Kwa.

“For more than 20 years, writer and news anchor Mimi Kwa reported countless stories for ABC TV, and then Nine Network. Meanwhile, off camera, Mimi had her own extraordinary story to tell.
The daughter of one of 32 children of a wealthy silk trader caught in the tides of history when the Japanese invaded China during World War II, Mimi turned grey overnight when she was informed that her father was suing her over the estate of
her beloved Aunty Theresa. The seed of this collision had been sown long ago. In an attempt to understand how it had come to this, Mimi revisits the past in her book House of Kwa. It’s an epic story spanning four generations of Mimi’s Chinese family, from the imperial compound in Beijing, along silk and opium routes to southern China, across to Hong Kong and finally to Perth.
Riveting, colourful and often darkly humorous, “House of Kwa” is an unforgettable tale about how one woman squares off against the ghosts of the past and finally puts them to rest. Throughout, Mimi’s inspiration is her father’s older sister, the jet-setting, free-spirited Aunty Theresa, whose extraordinary life is a beacon of hope in the darkness”

Purchase the book here

Speaker for House of Kwa

Mimi Kwa