Description
Set in 2000s Adelaide, Eggshell tells the story of Kira, a sarcastic, cynical teenager living in a council flat with her Cantonese grandmother (Apoh) and her rebellious older cousin, Jake. This novella starts and ends with Kira’s experience of Year 12 where she is caught between two worlds: being a subservient Cantonese granddaughter and a Big Brother-watching, boy-crazy Australian schoolgirl.
Eggshell is published under Spineless Wonders’ Espresso imprint.
Events
Thursday, 23 Oct, 7.30pm online event, details to be announced
Praise
“Eggshell really gets into the skin of a teenager grappling with adult responsibilities and caring duties. Kira’s world is completely real, her voice imbued with the urgency of a young adult trying to make sense of both her rich interior world and the often hostile exterior one. Olivia De Zilva’s voice explodes with a radiant energy, a raw and potent emotional power.”
ALICE PUNG
“De Zilva has established a unique and much-needed voice in Australian literature. Her writing is exquisitely observant, brutally truthful and genuinely hilarious. She effortlessly balances mordant humour with painful truthbombs about Australia’s multicultural illusion of the Noughties. Her unflinching depiction of the cumulative losses and grief of cancer broke my heart.
Kira is the perfect narrator; piercing, vulnerable and sharply attuned to the power dynamics of the high school microcosm. It was a joy to see her grow in confidence, identity and voice – without inspirational quotes and sentimentality, and without diminishing the difficulties and costs of doing so. There was so much to love in Eggshell; the anti-nostalgia of teenage suburban life, the all-too-familiar Cantonese stoicism, and the messy but bountiful love available among friends and in unconventional families.”
LEANNE HALL
“As a Chinese Australian who lived through the early 2000s, this stunning novella gave me cultural whiplash, taking me straight back to my salad days of early internet, teen fashion mags, Charlie perfume in the girl’s locker rooms and rites of passages with privileged Western students! I laughed out loud at the biting humour, I wept for these flesh and bone characters and I nodded along to our shared Asian experience until my neck hurt. Olivia is an exciting new powerhouse and I will be following her career keenly.”
SHIRLEY MARR
“Delightfully raucous and rich in detail, Eggshell is packed with all the cringe, colour, heartache and hilarity of high school. De Zilva has created a cast of memorable characters that you’ll fall in love with, groan at, despair for and ultimately cheer on with both fists raised.”
ERIN GOUGH
About the Author
OLIVIA DE ZILVA is a writer based on Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide. She has been awarded prizes including the AAWP Novella Prize, Deakin University Non-Fiction Prize, the Kat Muscat Fellowship and the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers. Olivia holds a Master of Philosophy from the University of Queensland; her thesis explored the representation of Asian-diasporic identity in contemporary Australian publishing. Her memoir, Plastic Budgie is published by Pink Shorts Press.
Cover Artwork: Bettina Kaiser
Distribution inquiries:
Our titles are distributed by NewSouth Books through Alliance Distribution Services:
Tel: 02 4390 1300
Email: adscs@alliancedist.com.au
www.newsouthbooks.com.au
