A rare and unique effort to combine translations of primary sources with professional history writing for Chinese Australian history, and perhaps for any non-English language account of Australia
Brings together historians with extensive experience working with Chinese language sources on Australian history, well positioned to explain how these sources can trans-form our understanding of Australia’s past and present
Many of the translations in this book were produced in collaboration with international graduate students, keen to learn about Australia and eager to contribute their knowledge of different languages
Ideal for historians of the global Sinophone, as well as those interested in Australian history
Accessible for undergraduate students, and therefore well suited for teaching Australian and Sinophone history


Sinophone Australia opens a new window onto Australian history by foregrounding Chinese-language sources as a lens through which to reinterpret the nation’s past. Understanding Australian history through sources written in a different language offers a familiar yet fundamentally different perspective on the Australian experience.


This groundbreaking volume brings together a rich collection of primary sources – letters, essays, travelogues – written in Chinese and now translated into English, spanning from the gold rush era of the 1850s to the postwar reflections of the 1950s. Each chapter includes primary sources translated into English and preceded by an academic introduction written by a historian who has engaged with these sources. In this respect, Sinophone Australia revises the Anglo-hegemony of historical writing, providing glimpses of non-English historical documents with the hopes that this will lead to the expansion of Australian history, just as a new multilingual generation of historians stands up to interpret the vast amount of source documents written in other languages.


Beyond its contribution to Australian history, Sinophone Australia positions these narratives within the broader framework of the global Sinophone, addressing themes that resonate across settler colonies and Chinese-speaking communities worldwide. Sharing analysis from historians who have extensive experience working with Chinese-language sources on Australian history, Sinophone Australia invites scholars and readers to reconsider the intersections of language, migration and identity in shaping historical knowledge.