'The opening scenes from The Lebs could be mistaken for speculative fiction, in which ethnic minorities are forced into guarded enclaves, surrounded by high fences and barbed wire, and monitored by surveillance cameras. But Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s second novel is closer to social realism: it is set within the surreal banality of Punchbowl Boys High School in Sydney’s western suburbs and narrated by Bani Adam, a young Lebanese-Australian man struggling to find his place in the world.' (Introduction)