Bio
James Varga is the author of the Little Egypt trilogy, three humorous yet philosophical novels reflecting American life in all of its inglorious and glorious highlights. He writes double-edged fiction—existential doubt told in jest. In Varga’s Little Egypt universe, absurdity collides with satire, and virtue rides on the back of humor. After the humor parts and fades away, the essence of humanity rises up in the relationships of ordinary people in everyday life, lifted by virtue, and saved through redemption.
His stories are set in Little Egypt, Illinois, with its folklore, legends, myths, and mystique. In this land, drivers can’t pass a highway sign or road map that lets them know they’re approaching Little Egypt, yet readers can visit Greens Point and Clermont County anytime they wish with the flip of a page. If held in a truthful angle, Varga’s Little Egypt is a fractured hand mirror that shows us pieces of who we really are.
In all three novels, the protagonists live on the outside of the mainstream: grave robbers, an ex-con, and those who survived each day in school in the shadows of the popular students. Their perspective is invaluable: outsiders have a better view of those too busy acting important in the affairs of everybody else.
Antiheroes from around the literary world have always populated Varga’s library. Through his travels, he has found good company with the likes of Arzee (Arzee the Dwarf), Zein (The Wedding of Zein), Ignatious J. Reilly (A Confederacy of Dunces), Candide, and the one and only Don Quixote.
In his professional life, James M. Varga is a judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois. Judge Varga presides over civil jury trials in the Law Division in Chicago. He has presided over record jury verdicts, including the Illinois record of $387.4 million. At the Illinois Judicial Education Conferences, he has taught Illinois judges from around the state. He has given lectures to lawyers on evidence and trial advocacy at the Chicago Bar Association and students at Chicago law schools. He has published articles on evidence in the Illinois Bar Journal of the Illinois State Bar Association and trial practice in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.
He began his professional career on the prosecution team against John Wayne Gacy, the serial murderer of thirty-three boys and young men. He graduated from Notre Dame Law School, associate editor of the law review, and has returned as guest faculty for the Intensive Trial Advocacy Program. He graduated from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale with a perfect academic grade point average, missing the perfect cumulative mark only once with a “B” in handball his first fall semester.