Benjamin Law – författare

Teresa's mum finds it impossible to let anything go-from grudges to household objects. She thinks of her home as a museum full of irreplaceable treasures. But she's not really a curator, she's a hoarder, and her house is enough to give Marie Kondo heart palpitations. When her kids return home to celebrate her 60th birthday, she's over the moon to have the family back together. But this isn't a reunion. It's an intervention.Celebrated writer Benjamin Law is one of this country's brightest literary stars. For his hysterically funny and moving stage premiere, Law employs his effortless self-deprecating wit to spark joy in the clutter and find truth in those crazy moments that bring families closer together.Commissioned through MTC's NEXT STAGE Writers' Program with the support of our Playwrights Giving Circle Donors, The Ian Potter Foundation, Naomi Milgrom Foundation, The Myer Foundation, Malcolm Robertson Foundation and The University of Melbourne.

Benjamin Law considers himself pretty lucky to live in Australia: he can hold his boyfriend's hand in public and lobby his politicians to recognize same-sex marriage. But as the child of immigrants, he's also curious about how different life might have been had he grown up in Asia. So he sets off to meet his fellow Gaysians. Law takes his investigative duties seriously, going nude where required in Balinese sex resorts, sitting backstage for hours with Thai ladyboy beauty contestants, and trying Indian yoga classes designed to cure his homosexuality. The characters he meets — from Tokyo's celebrity drag queens to HIV-positive Burmese sex workers and Malaysian ex-gay Christian fundamentalists to Chinese gays and lesbians who marry each other to please their parents — all teach him something new about being queer in Asia. At once entertaining and moving, Gaysia is a wild ride and a fascinating quest by a leading Australian writer.

No amount of YouTube videos and queer think pieces prepared me for this moment. The mantle of “queer migrant” compelled me to keep going – to go further. I never “came out” to my parents. I felt I owed them no explanation. All I heard from the pulpit were grim hints. I became acutely aware of the parts of myself that were unpalatable to queers who grew up in the city. My queerness was born in a hot dry land that was never ceded. Even now, I sometimes think that I don’t know my own desire. Compiled by celebrated author and journalist Benjamin Law, Growing Up Queer in Australia assembles voices from across the spectrum of LGBTIQA+ identity. Spanning diverse places, eras, ethnicities and experiences, these are the stories of growing up queer in Australia. For better or worse, sooner or later, life conspires to reveal you to yourself, and this is growing up. With contributions from David Marr, Fiona Wright, Nayuka Gorrie, Steve Dow, Holly Throsby, Sally Rugg, Tony Ayres, Nic Holas, Rebecca Shaw and many more.

Writer and columnist Benjamin Law revisits his joyous and much-loved family memoir, spilling the tea on his family's latest antics

The book that inspired the major SBS television series!

Meet the Law family – eccentric, endearing and hard to resist. Your guide is Benjamin, the third of five children and a born humourist. Join him as he tries to answer some puzzling questions. Why won't his Chinese dad wear made-in-China underpants? Why was most of his extended family deported in the 1980s? Will his childhood dreams of Home and Away stardom come to nothing? What are his chances of finding love?

In this updated edition with a new chapter, Benjamin Law fills us in on his family's antics from the past decade.

‘Benjamin Law manages to be scatagogical, hilarious and heartbreaking all at the same time. Every sentence fizzes like an exploding fireball of energy.’—Alice Pung

‘A vivid, gorgeously garish, Technicolour portrait of a family. It's impossible not to let oneself go along for the ride and emerge at the book's end enlightened, touched, thrilling with laughter.’—Marieke Hardy

‘The eccentric, clever and beautifully resonant The Family Law. It's sharply written, brilliantly observed and infused with an authenticity that makes it compelling.’ —Saturday Age

‘Very funny...you may find yourself at times almost barking with laughter’ —The Monthly

‘Law is a writer of great wit and warmth who combines apparently artless and effortless comedian's patter with a high level of technical skill.’ —Sydney Morning Herald

‘Simultaneously weird and instantly recognisable, the Laws are an Australian family it's well worth getting to know’ —The Enthusiast

‘Wonderful. Everyone should run to their nearest bookshop and buy a copy.’ —Defamer

‘An addictive read.’ —Courier-Mail