What do we owe to the people we love? And how do we carry each other’s stories through time?

In this episode of Fully Lit, Chinese-Australian writer Isabelle Li joins acclaimed novelist Gail Jones to discuss The Northern Tomb, a sweeping and deeply humane novel about family, memory, obligation and belonging.

Set in northern China and spanning decades of personal and political history, the novel follows an ageing former government official, his family, and Sister Fu, the quiet carer whose compassion and attention bring their stories into focus.

Together, Li and Jones explore kinship, care, ageing, grief, friendship and the responsibilities we hold towards one another. They discuss the power of storytelling, the role of memory in shaping identity, and the ways literature can deepen our understanding of lives beyond our own experience.

At the centre of it all is a simple but profound question: how do we learn to care for one another?

This episode of Fully Lit was recorded at Gleebooks on Gadigal land in Sydney.

Voices

Isabelle Li is a Chinese Australian writer and translator whose works include the short story collection A Chinese Affair and the novel The Northern Tomb.

Gail Jones is one of Australia’s most acclaimed novelists, the author of eleven novels, whose work has been translated widely and recognised with numerous major literary awards.

Credits

This episode was recorded on Gadigal land at Sydney's Gleebooks - for more literary events like this one, see the Gleebooks events page.

Fully Lit is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books, and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, and is produced by Regina Botros.

Executive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang.

Recorded by Gleebooks.

Mixed by Regina Botros.

Further Reading

The Northern Tomb by Isabelle Li (Puncher & Wattman, 2026)

A Chinese Affair by Isabelle Li (Margaret River Press, 2016)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

The Selected Stories of Lu Xun

Gail Jones' latest novel is The Name of the Sister (Text, 2025)

For more conversations about fiction, storytelling and contemporary Australian writing, explore the Fully Lit back catalogue.