AustLit

'“Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity or genuineness,” wrote Benedict Anderson, the late, great Irish historian of nationalism, “but in the style in which they are imagined.” It’s a line that should ring in the ears of those who have spent time reading the recent explosion of fictions by Australian authors from Middle Eastern backgrounds. Figures such as Michael Mohammed Ahmad and Omar Sakr have written novels that ache with a sense of lost connection – whether to language, culture, religion, people or place – yet do so in a manner so vivid and charismatic, their woundedness takes on a distinct character.'

 (Introduction)