Meet the Author: Emma Pei Yin 'When Sleeping Women Wake'

Emma Pei Yin joins Victoria Purman to discuss her epic debut novel — a story of three spirited women bound together as Hong Kong falls. The wealthy Tang family has settled in Hong Kong after fleeing Shanghai. As First Wife, Mingzhu leads a glamorous but lonely existence—mothering her husband's concubine's son, overseeing her daughter Qiang's education, and directing their household, including her confidante, Biyu. When the Japanese invade, the three women's paths wildly diverge. Mingzhu's gift for languages spares her physical labour but she's coerced into serving an enemy captain. Qiang and Biyu suffer brutal factory work and rations until an encounter with resistance fighters separates them. As war rages, each woman holds onto hope that the others are alive. Can they fight for their freedom and still find their way back to each other? Books available for purchase and signing with kind support from local bookseller Mostly Books. Emma Pei Yin Emma Pei Yin is an Australian-Chinese writer, editor and literary advocate. Her debut novel, When Sleeping Women Wake, has been published internationally and translated into multiple languages. The novel was longlisted for the ARA Historical Novel Prize (2025) and won the Australian Indie Book Awards in the Debut Fiction category (2026). Emma is the founder of yinfluence, an agency supporting PoC, queer and neurodivergent writers by connecting them with editors and mentors who understand the stakes of telling stories from the margins. She is an Author Advocate for Room to Read and an Ambassador for Chapters for Change. She is currently working on her second novel with her extremely barky dachshund, Lady, by her side. More about Emma.