Julie Koh

Julie Koh (許瑩玲) was born in Sydney to Chinese-Malaysian parents. She studied politics and law at the University of Sydney, then quit a career in corporate law to pursue writing. She is the author of two short-story collections: Capital Misfits and Portable Curiosities. The latter was shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, the Steele Rudd Award in the Queensland Literary Awards, the UTS Glenda Adams Award in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and the Australian Science Fiction Foundation’s Norma K Hemming Award (Long Work). Julie was named a 2017 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist. She was a judge for the 2018 Stella Prize. Her short stories have appeared in a wide variety of publications including the Best Australian Stories in 2014 to 2017. Her fiction has been published in the United States, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. Julie is the editor of BooksActually’s Gold Standard, the librettist for satirical opera Chop Chef, and a founding member of experimental literary collective Kanganoulipo.

（Photo Credit to Hugh Stewart）

Quote

I see two things at once. My regular eyes see a lizard about the length of my forearm, its chest expanding and contracting as it breathes. But my other eye sees a little grey boy. His belly is swollen and he looks at me with saucer eyes.

— Portable Curiosities, Julie Koh

Book Reviews

‘The Australian writer’s new work, Portable Curiosities, is a collection of whip-smart satirical tales that are as painfully funny as they are uncomfortably timely. … It’s perfect for our busy, scary times: easily digestible and, for all its madcap imagination, utterly true.’

— Guardian Australia on Portable Curiosities

‘Koh is a gifted satirist … Humour, weirdness, and social critique characterise almost all of the stories in this clever and highly original collection.’

– The Sydney Morning Herald on Portable Curiosities

許瑩玲（Julie Koh）在悉尼出生，父母是馬來西亞華裔。她畢業于悉尼大學政治與法律專業，畢業幾年后放棄了公司法律師的職業，專職寫作。她出版有兩本短篇小說集：《資本失格》（Capital Misfits）與《輕小奇妙事》（Portable Curiosities）。其中《輕小奇妙事》入圍多個獎項短名單，包括“新澳大利亞小說——閱讀獎”、“昆士蘭文學獎——斯蒂爾?拉德獎”、“新南威爾士總理文學獎的獎——悉尼科技大學格蘭達?亞當斯獎”，以及澳大利亞科幻小說基金會頒發的“諾瑪?K?恒明獎”。2017年，許瑩玲入選《悉尼先驅晨報》澳大利亞優秀青年小說家，2018年受邀擔任斯特拉獎評委。短篇作品在多個刊物發表，并在2014年至2017年連續三年入選《最佳澳大利亞故事》合集。她的作品也在美國、愛爾蘭、日本、馬來西亞與新加坡等國出版。瑩玲同時也是新加坡獨立書店BooksActually年度文學選集《BooksActually的黃金標準》的編輯、諷刺歌劇《主廚爭奪戰》（Chop Chef）的劇本作者，以及實驗文學團體袋鼠烏力波（Kanganoulipo）的創始人之一。

照片來自：HughStewart

引言

我同時看見兩個物體。正常的雙眼看見一只蜥蜴，有我前臂那么長，胸口隨著呼吸起伏。而另一只眼卻看到一個面如紙色的小男孩。他鼓脹著肚子，一雙空洞幽深的眼睛盯住我。

——《輕小奇妙事》許瑩玲，梅冬陳譯

書評

這位澳大利亞作家的新作《輕小奇妙事》是一本小說集，這些故事機智諷刺，好玩又扎心，因為它們如此切入時代……它適合我們這個忙碌、恐怖的時代：太好讀，而其中瘋狂的想象又無比真實。

——《澳大利亞衛報》評《輕小奇妙事》

許瑩玲是個極具天賦的諷刺作家……這本聰穎且極為新奇的小說集里的所有故事都體現出了她的幽默、古怪和社會批判意識。

—《悉尼先驅晨報》評《輕小奇妙事》