Podcast: Michael Mohammed Ahmad on Being Lebanese-Australian and Reclaiming Arab Humanity

Podcast: Michael Mohammed Ahmad on Being Lebanese-Australian and Reclaiming Arab Humanity

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Award-winning author Michael Mohammed Ahmad and Cheryl talk about being Lebanese-Australians, their parallel stories, and the normalised compromises migrants make to fit in. This is an important conversation about the lack of humanity Arabs are given and reclaiming that for their children. Ahmad’s latest novel, The Other Half of You, is out now.

About the author:

Michael Mohammed Ahmad is the founding director of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and editor of the critically acclaimed anthology After Australia (Affirm Press, 2020). Mohammed’s debut novel, The Tribe (Giramondo, 2014), won the 2015 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelists of the Year Award. His second novel, The Lebs (Hachette Australia, 2018), won the 2019 NSW Premier’s Multicultural Literary Award and was shortlisted for the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Mohammed received his Doctorate of Creative Arts from Western Sydney University in 2017.

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      Publisher details

      The Other Half of You
      Author
      Michael Mohammed Ahmad
      Publisher
      Hachette
      Genre
      Fiction
      Released
      26 May, 2021
      ISBN
      9780733639036

      Synopsis

      A novel as potent and powerful as the Miles Franklin shortlisted The Lebs, driven by a tender and defining love. Bani Adam has known all his life what was expected of him. To marry the right kind of girl. To make the House of Adam proud. But Bani wanted more than this - he wanted to make his own choices. Being the first in his Australian Muslim family to go to university, he could see a different way. Years later, Bani will write his story to his son, Kahlil. Telling him of the choices that were made on Bani's behalf and those that he made for himself. Of the hurt he caused and the heartache he carries. Of the mistakes he made and the lessons he learned. In this moving and timely novel, Michael Mohammed Ahmad balances the complexities of modern love with the demands of family, tradition and faith. The Other Half of You is the powerful, insightful and unforgettable new novel from the Miles Franklin shortlisted author of The Lebs.
      Michael Mohammed Ahmad
      About the author

      Michael Mohammed Ahmad

      Michael Mohammed Ahmad is an Arab-Australian writer, editor, teacher and community arts worker. He is the founder and director of Sweatshop, a literacy movement in Western Sydney devoted to empowering culturally and linguistically diverse artists through creative writing. Mohammed's essays and short stories have appeared in the Sydney Review of Books, The Guardian, Heat, Seizure, The Lifted Brow, The Australian and Coming of Age: Australian Muslim Stories. His debut novel, The Tribe, received a 2015 Sydney Morning HeraldBest Young Australian Novelists of the Year Award. Mohammed received his Doctorate of Creative Arts at Western Sydney University in 2017.

      Books by Michael Mohammed Ahmad

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