Funny Ethnics

I looked at the streets of Yagoona through eyes stinging with melted Maybelline liquid liner. Yagoona looked back at me, the wannabe hipster who dreamed of moving to a share house in the inner west, and cackled.

Funny Ethnics catapults readers into the sprawling city-within-a-city that is Western Sydney and the world of Sylvia Nguyen: only child of Vietnamese refugee parents, unexceptional student, exceptional self-doubter. It's a place where migrants from across the world converge, and identity is a slippery, ever-shifting beast.

Jumping through snapshots of Sylvia's life — from childhood to something resembling adulthood — this novel is about square pegs and round holes, those who belong and those on the fringes. It's a funhouse mirror held up to modern Australia revealing suburban fortune tellers, train-carriage preachers, crumbling friendships and bad stand-up comedy.

In Funny Ethnics, Shirley Le uses a coming-of-age tale to reveal a side of Australia so ordinary that it's entirely bizarre.

'Shirley Le is a writer to watch out for, and this book is an absolute joy to read.' — Alice Pung

'Le's debut is a breath of fresh air: astute, unsentimental, and extremely fun.' — Michelle Law