Issue Details: First known date: 2021... 2021 The World Is Not Big Enough : A Personal Journey to Understand One Refugee's Life
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The World Is Not Big Enough is the story of one woman’s journey to understand the human cost of a broken system. At once an investigation into the murder of a refugee and an exploration of Australians' collective guilt, The World Is Not Big Enough explores the ways we are all hurt by migration policies.

'In 2013, on a whim Vanessa Russell googled Ahmad Shah Abed, an Afghani asylum seeker she had exchanged letters with a decade earlier, to find he had been tragically murdered in 2009. The news came as a shock. Ahmad had been living in detention in Port Hedland when Vanessa had first started writing to him as a student hoping to do some good. Their relationship had been brief but impactful. After all these years, Vanessa couldn’t shake the feeling that she had failed him. With the news of Ahmad Shah’s murder, Vanessa realised she needed to find answers.

'Determined to unravel what happened and why, Vanessa travels to Port Hedland, Christmas Island and Perth, and interviews Ahmad Shah’s friends, fellow refugees, refugee advocates, support workers, people who worked in detention centres, and spends a year talking with the murderer himself. What she uncovers is the less-told story of how not only refugees but Australians themselves are being damaged by asylum seeker and refugee policies.' (Publication summary)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Richmond, East Melbourne - Richmond area, Melbourne, Victoria,: Hardie Grant Books , 2021 .
      Extent: 304p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 03 February 2021
      ISBN: 9781743796832

Works about this Work

What Is the (Australian) Refugee Novel? Keyvan Allahyari , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge Companion to the Australian Novel 2023; (p. 305-316)

'The refugee novel is a problematic classificiation, especially when one adds a national label to it. This chapter examines the writing of Behrouz Boochani, Michelle de Kretser, and Felicity Castagna in the context Australia’s treatment of refugees. It argues that refugee fiction can play a vital epistemological and ethical role in the Australian context, while also emphasizing the dangers of commodification that dog the category of “refugee writing.”' (Publication abstract)

What Is the (Australian) Refugee Novel? Keyvan Allahyari , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge Companion to the Australian Novel 2023; (p. 305-316)

'The refugee novel is a problematic classificiation, especially when one adds a national label to it. This chapter examines the writing of Behrouz Boochani, Michelle de Kretser, and Felicity Castagna in the context Australia’s treatment of refugees. It argues that refugee fiction can play a vital epistemological and ethical role in the Australian context, while also emphasizing the dangers of commodification that dog the category of “refugee writing.”' (Publication abstract)

Last amended 12 Oct 2020 12:48:28
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