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Hon Lai-chu (Chinese: 韓麗珠) is a Hong Kong bilingual writer whose her absurd, abstract and surrealistic style of writing had made her famous among the arts field. She was born in 1978 and started to submit short home-made novels for publication at the age of 14. She  finished her first degree in Linguistics and Translation Studies in the City University of Hong Kong while having Cultural Studies as her postgraduate degree.  

Since then, she has authored eight books in Chinese and won numerous awards, including the Hong Kong Biennial Award for Chinese Literature for fiction, Taiwan’s Unitas New Writer’s Novella first prize, and the Hong Kong Book Prize. On top of that, her novels have been named to the list of Top Ten Chinese Novels Worldwide in 2008 and 2009.

In her writing, together with her surrealistic and abstract style, pets and animals are often used as one of the main characters. With her strong attachment on cats, according to Hon, they are acted as metaphors that either symbolising or satirizing the dark side of human nature as well as the vices in society. Moreover, part of them also revealed her own inner struggles for freedom, benevolence and equality against the attempts to find meaning in everyday existence.

 

Other than a passionate story-writer, Hon is also an active and critical columnist who are keeping up with the current affairs as well as social injustice especially the minorities and animals rights.