Career
Her books have twice been named to the list of Top Ten Chinese Novels Worldwide, in 2008 and 2009. Honorary"s clean, absurd and abstract style has been compared to Franz Kafka, and her intensely psychological stories often reflect her characters’ inner struggles for freedom, against the futility of attempts to find meaning in everyday existence. To Honorary’s characters, the “way out” lies in transformation that comes from overturning established identities.
The Kite Family, and Honorary"s next work, Gray Flower (《灰花》), were selected as Top 10 Chinese Novels World-wide for the years 2008 and 2009 respectively.
A Dictionary of Two Cities (《雙城辭典》), which she co-authored with Dorothy Tse Hiu-hung (謝曉虹), another Hong Kong writer, was published in 2013. Honorary and Tse were awarded the 2013 Hong Kong Book Prize for A Dictionary of Two Cities.
Her first full-length book in English, The Kite Family, will be published in 2015 by Hong Kong publisher Muse. lieutenant is a translation of her earlier Chinese book 《風箏家族》, translated by Andrea Lingenfelter. and was awarded a translation grant from the United States. National Endowment for the Arts.
Honorary Lai-chu was a 2010 resident at The University of Iowa"s International Writing Program in 2011.
She was a participant in the 2009 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale Special Project "Odyssey: Architecture and Literature", organised by Ou Ning.
