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David Walker AM
Author and Australian HistorianDavid Walker AM is an Australian historian, a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He has long been interested in Australia’s
relations with Asia. His books in this area include Anxious Nation: Australia and the rise of Asia, 1850-1939 (1999); Australia’s Asia: from Yellow Peril to Asian Century (co-edited with Agnieszka
Sobocinska, 2012); and Stranded Nation: White Australia in an Asian Region (2019). His general history of Australia (co-authored with Louise Johnson and Tanja Lukins) The Story of Australia: a new
history of people and place appeared in 2022.
In 2013 David Walker took up an appointment as the inaugural BHP Chair of Australian Studies at Peking University. During his three-year stay in Beijing with his wife Karen, he met Professor Li Yao, a
member of the Chinese Writers’ Association who has translated almost forty Australian books into Chinese. When Li Yao agreed to translate David’s book, Not Dark Yet: a personal history (2011) the
two became very good friends. They discussed the translation while travelling extensively through China. When the translation was complete, Li Yao persuaded David that his next task should be a
joint memoir telling their parallel life stories. The result is Happy Together: Bridging the Australia China divide.