This unique fantasy short story features Chee, an old migrant from Malaysia whose day job is to drive aged-care residents around Darwin at the Top End of Australia. On this particular night, however, he looks after the city’s hungry ghosts.
It is the Hungry Ghost Festival on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month, when the gates of Hell open to release ghosts who are hungry for all they have lost. A feast and burning joss sticks at the local temple should satiate their hunger before they start snatching at people’s life-force.
No one deserves to be forgotten… but what happens when the hungry ghosts are remembered? Chee learns the answer first-hand in this delicate story that interweaves history, folklore, faith, and cross-cultural and cross-generational trauma. A chilling story that somehow gives us hope.
This finalist for the 2024 Aurealis Awards – Best Fantasy Short Story is collected in the “Best Australian Speculative Fiction: Short Stories 2026” anthology. Please visit our official fundraising page via the Australian Cultural Fund, or our website for details of the Chinese edition publishing fundraiser: Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, English.
Voices under the Sun 陽光下的聲音 