Isabelle Li - The Northern Tomb

Name: Isabelle Li - The Northern Tomb
Start: 2026-07-19T14:30:00+10:00
End: 2026-07-19T14:30:00+10:00
Location: Upstairs at Gleebooks

About

2.30pm for 3pm Sunday 19 July

In conversation with Gail Jones

MC Liz Allen

A quietly powerful novel that explores the depth of grief, aging, illness and the meaning of caring for the body.

The Northern Tomb tells the story of Mr Zhao, an elderly widower, and Sister Fu, his middle-aged carer, isolating together during the Covid pandemic in Shenyang, Northeast China. Weighed down by loss and private sorrow, the unlikely housemates protect and care for each other in ingenious ways as they come to terms with their own painful pasts.

Structured as a quartet, narrated in multiple voices with different perspectives, this novel explores the depth of grief and the possibility of redemption, while testifying to the transformative power of friendship during difficult times.

Isabelle Li is a Chinese Australian writer and translator. Her collection of short stories, A Chinese Affair, was published by Margaret River Press in 2016. She was the inaugural winner of the Margaret Whitlam Fellowship. She received her Doctor of Creative Arts from Western Sydney University.

Gail Jones is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. She is the author of two short-story collections and eleven novels, and her work has been translated into several languages and has received numerous literary awards. She lives in Sydney.

Elizabeth Allen lives and writes on unceded Cameraygal land. Her work has found frequent publication in well-respected journals and anthologies both in Australia and overseas, including Cordite, Ajar, Bodega, Overland, Island, Southerly, Meanjin, Australian Book Review, and SAND. The author of two poetry collections, Body Language (Vagabond Press, 2012) and Present (Vagabond Press, 2017), Elizabeth won the Dame Leonie Kramer Prize in 2001 and the Anne Elder Award in 2012.