Olivia De Zilva

Olivia De Zilva's Plastic Budgie is a brutally funny and inventive debut about family and self, full of itchy Y2K nostalgia, curses, and glimpses of birds. ‘There was no use googling am I cursed because the search engine algorithm would always say yes.’ Olivia was named after a lycra-clad singer her parents saw on Rage. As a child, she lost...

‘Patient is seeking support for work-related stress and has engaged employee support. She is exhibiting delusions of grandeur (proclaiming to be the Jennifer Lawrence of the office) and experiencing major fatigue (using paid lunch breaks to aura farm at the vending machine).’ Is this book: An ode to the G10 bus line and Li-Shang from Mulan? A lament on employment,...

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....