Lucky Ticket - Joey Bui in conversation with Winnie Dunn

Join us to celebrate the launch of Joey Bui's extraordinary debut collection of stories, Lucky Ticket. Joey will be in conversation with Winnie Dunn here at Better Read Than Dead.

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In Lucky Ticket, Joey Bui introduces a diverse range of characters, all with distinctive voices, and makes us think differently about identity, mixed-race relationships, difficulties between family generations, war and dislocation.

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A highly original collection of stories by a talented young writer. In the comic-tragic eponymous story, ‘Lucky Ticket’, the narrator, a genial, disabled old man, whose spirit is far from crushed, sells lottery tickets on a street corner in bustling Saigon. In ‘Mekong Love’, two young people in a restrictive society try to find a way to consummate their relationship—in an extraordinary tropical landscape.

In ‘Abu Dhabi Gently’, a story of dreams and disappointment, of camaraderie and disillusionment, a migrant worker leaves Zanzibar to earn money in the UAE in order to be able to marry his fiancée. ‘White Washed’ depicts a strained friendship between two students in Melbourne, the Vietnamese narrator and a white girl. What does it mean to be Asian? What does it mean to be white? And what makes up identity?

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Praise

‘After reading this devastatingly great collection – imbued with equal parts pain and humour, suffering and the sublime – I want to recommend it to not just my Vietnamese or Asian-Australian friends, but anyone who reads.’ - Benjamin Law

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‘Filled with distinctive characters and full of surprises, these stories are enlightening and unforgettable.’ - Alice Pung

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Joey Bui is a masterful storyteller. The stories in Lucky Ticket are so diverse in setting and voice, it’s hard to believe they were all written by the same person. Each tale is delightfully rich with detail and yet reverberates with a broader truth. When the book finished, I was sad to leave its pages but heartened to know that such a collection exists in the world. These unforgettable characters and stories will keep me company for a gloriously long time. - Melanie Cheng

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About the Author

Joey Bui is a Vietnamese-Australian writer. She graduated from New York University Abu Dhabi, where she completed her first collection of short stories, Lucky Ticket, based on interviews with Vietnamese refugees around the world.

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Joey has been published in journals and magazines in the US and Australia. She is currently studying at Harvard Law School.