Good Muslim Boy

Author: Osamah Sami

Publisher: Richmond, Victoria: Hardie Grant Books, 2015

Annotation: 

Good Muslim Boy is the humourously told memoir of actor, writer and comedian Osamah Sami. Born to an Iranian father and Kurdish mother, who met in an Iraqi refugee camp, Sami's early life was marked by conflict; he lost a brother in the war and witnessed a public execution. Boyish shenanigans like selling blackmarket fireworks and trying to hold hands with girls earned him floggings at the hands of the piety police. After moving to Melbourne at 12, where his dad got a job teaching Arabic literature and lead the local mosque, Osamah still cannot avoid getting into trouble -- whether finding a way out of a proposed arranged marriage or pretending to study medicine for a year to placate his parents. 

 

"Good Muslim Boy is a hilarious and heartbreaking memoir of love, loss and family." (Blurb on back cover) It won the 2016 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards and the 2015 International Golden Phoenix Award for contribution to Iraqi Culture in diaspora.

Additional formats: Also available as an audiobook

For more information:

• Osamah Sami (author's website)
• ABC (interview with the author)
• Sydney Morning Herald (interview with the author)
• SBS (interview with the author)
• Goodreads

We are here: my family's courageous journey to survive

Author:  Cat Thao Nguyen

Publisher:  Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2015

Annotation: 

Born in a refugee camp on the borders of Cambodia and Thailand to parents fleeing war in Vietnam, Cat Thao Nguyen tells the story of how her family came to settle in Australia and her experiences growing up in Western Sydney in the 80s and 90s. In this candid memoir, described as "unflinching in its detail of the many tortured steps to freedom," (Sydney Morning Herald) Nguyen unpacks the sacrifices made by her family as they struggle to overcome the scars of their past traumas and make a new life for themselves in a society that is not always welcoming.

For more information:

• Allen & Unwin (publisher)
• Goodreads
• Sydney Morning Herald

Questions of travel

Author:  Michelle De Kretser

Publisher:  New York: Little, Brown and Company 2013

Annotation: 

Questions of Travel tells the stories of Laura Fraser, an alienated Sydneysider who escapes to Europe and forges a new identity as an expat travel write after a beloved aunt dies, leaving her a modest inheritance. She returns home, aimless and unmoored.  Meanwhile Ravi Mendes, a Sri Lankan refugee has fled to Australia after the brutal murder of his wife and child in the country's civil war. Their stories are told in alternating chapters and, inevitably, their paths cross and their stories entwine. 

Questions of Travel both the 2013 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal and the 2013 Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award for fiction. Writing in Booklist, Hazel Rochman says of the book: "This ironic, contemporary view of finding home makes for heartfelt drama." 

Additional formats: Also available as an audiobook

For more information:

• Little Brown (publisher)
• Goodreads
• The Guardian
• Australian Book Review
  
  

Spinifex and sunflowers

Author: Avan Judd Stallard

Publisher: Fremantle, W.A.: Fremantle Press, 2018

Annotation: 

Spinifex and Sunflowers relates the story of Nick Harris, an unlikable debt-ridden drifter who finds employment as a prison guard at a refugee detention centre in Western Australian desert. As time passes, the detainees open up to Nick and tell him the stories of the lives and loved ones they left behind how they came to Australia's shores. 

Described by Books + Publishing magazine as "well written, confronting, passionate and often graphic," this gritty, haunting and, at times, disturbing novel, lends readers an inside view on life inside Australia's immigrant detention centres. 

For more information:

• Freemantle Press (publisher)
• Goodreads

Behind the moon

Author: Hsu-Ming Teo

Publisher: Crows Nest, N.S.W.:  Allen and Unwin, 2005

Annotation: Behind the Moon is a coming of age story centred on three young misfits who grew up together in the Sydney suburbs in the 90s, and their struggles to reconcile their families' traditions and expectations with their individual identities. Justin is an only child who bears all the pressure of meeting the expectations of his Chinese-Singaporean parents, Tien Ho who never knew her African American father and grew up without her Vietnamese mother, and Nigel Gibson (Gibbo), who hates sports and struggles to relate to his Australian parents. The friends drift apart with age but a dinner party held to commemorate the death of Princess Diana brings everyone back together for an ill-fated reunion. A Kirkus review finds that "the  book embodies the  immigrant experience ... and never loses its emotional intimacy."

For more information:

• Allen & Unwin (publisher)
• Goodreads

Farewell, my orange

Author: Iwaki Kei ; translated by Meredith McKinney

Publisher: New York: Europa Editions, 2018

Annotation: In this haunting novel, two women -- Salimah, a Nigerian refugee, and Sayuri, an immigrant from Japan -- meet in an English class in small town Australia and develop a deep friendship that both will rely on as they face desperate challenges and heartbreaking circumstances in their personal lives. 

Publishers Weekly says Kei "adroitly intertwines these remarkable characters’ dreams and determination, making for an immigrant tale that readers won’t forget." Farewell, my Orange was the recipient of the Kenzaburo Oe and Dazai Osamu literary prizes.

Additional formats: Also available as an eBook

For more information:

• Europa Editions (publisher)
• Goodreads
• Publishers Weekly