'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.' (Publication summary)
'A debut novel that tracks the life of a young Vietnamese-Australian caught between two worlds.'
'We start at the beginning with the title. “Funny Ethnics” is a self reflexive nod to the non-Asian audience about to read the book with a promise to be amusing with cross cultural humour. Le lives up to this promise and more, with her insightful voice through Sylvia her protagonist. Non Asians may laugh at some of the foibles Le illustrates but Asians would too but also have ‘a ha’ moments of recognition.' (Introduction)
'We start at the beginning with the title. “Funny Ethnics” is a self reflexive nod to the non-Asian audience about to read the book with a promise to be amusing with cross cultural humour. Le lives up to this promise and more, with her insightful voice through Sylvia her protagonist. Non Asians may laugh at some of the foibles Le illustrates but Asians would too but also have ‘a ha’ moments of recognition.' (Introduction)
'A debut novel that tracks the life of a young Vietnamese-Australian caught between two worlds.'
