Lee Kofman

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Lee Kofman is the author of three works of fiction and the two memoirs Imperfect (Affirm Press, 2019), which was shortlisted for the 2019 Nib Literary Award, and The Dangerous Bride (Melbourne University Press, 2014). She is also co-editor of Rebellious Daughters (Ventura Press, 2016) and editor of Split (2019, Ventura Press), which was longlisted for the 2020 ABIA Small Publisher’s Adult Book of the Year. Her work has previously been published in Griffith Review 3, 7, 11, 15, 26, 29, 35, 51 and 57.

 

Articles

At the Russian restaurant: Audio edition

MediaListen to Lee Kofman read aloud her short story 'At the Russian restaurant', a vivid tale of love, belonging and alternative lives. This story appears in Griffith Review 69: The European Exchange (you can read the story here). Griffith Review ·...

At the Russian restaurant

FictionListen to Lee Kofman reading ‘At the Russian restaurant’. AT MY REQUEST, Slavik is taking me to a Russian restaurant in the heart of Melbourne. This is him: narrow water-­blue eyes; lips long and slippery like snakes; chopped hair with a balding patch at...

The suicide-bomber Barbie doll

GR OnlineI WOKE UP at about midday. My head was still heavy from the drinking and some vaguely remembered sexual activity of the previous night (with whom I was also unclear about; my memory seemed to have dissolved in the...

No permit for dignity

MemoirEARLY IN MY life in Australia, during the year I spent on a bridging visa that included no work permit, and with the little savings I had running out, I rejoiced when a new job offer finally came my...

Hamlet in a classroom

EssayIN MY TEENS I revered writers. I hung onto their words the way my classmates hung onto marijuana. I believed writers had the gift of clairvoyance, that they knew things about this world non-writers didn't. I thought people wrote...

On becoming a Jew

MemoirIf you ever forget you're a Jew, a Gentile will remind you.– Bernard MalamudBROOKLYN LAUNDRY, 2002: Sometimes I am asked how it feels to be a Jew in Australia. For years I had not considered myself a Jew. I...

The magic door to Judaism

MemoirI GREW UP in a Jewish Orthodox family and my first memories of Kabbalah flow from my childhood in the early 1980s. Kabbalah seemed like Salome – an alluring silhouette blurred by seven mysterious scarves. It was so available,...

Finding the angles

Fiction‘EVERY WOMAN ADORES a fascist.'– Sylvia Plath 1. The puppyWITH PAUL, SEX has become vicious altruism: Come on, I'll give you what you want... This is what he teaches her: the availability of humiliation; the intolerable easiness of pleasure.He also teaches...

The bridal lesson

Fiction‘When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and everyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.’Leviticus 15:19 A MONTH BEFORE they left for Australia, just after Gorbachev was...

Discovering the mother tongue

MemoirPHILOSOPHERS SAY INNER contradictions are a natural thing; they lie within the core of the human condition. I'd add that from the imbroglio of everyday paradoxes, there will always emerge one overriding paradox – one that defines the course...

Passion in a time of war

Memoir'I went off with my hands in my torn coat pockets. My overcoat too was becoming ideal. I travelled beneath the sky, Muse! And I was your vassal. Oh dear me! What marvellous loves I dreamed of!'– RimbaudEVENTUALLY IT...

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