'Jamilah has always believed she knows where her home is: in a house above a paint shop on the outskirts of Beirut, with her large, chaotic, loving family. But she soon learns that as Palestinian refugees, her family's life in Lebanon is precarious.
'Songs for the Dead and the Living is a coming-of-age tale played out across generations and continents, from Palestine to Australia. Sara M Saleh offers a breathtaking portrait of the fragilities and flaws of family in the wake of war.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'Sara M. Saleh is a writer and human rights lawyer. She has won two of Australia’s most prestigious poetry prizes: Overland’s Judith Wright Poetry Prize in 2020 and Australian Book Review’s Peter Porter Poetry Prize in 2021. She has published extensively in literary and poetry journals, and co-edited Arab, Australian, Other: Stories on Race and Identity with Randa Abdel-Fattah.' (Introduction)
'A powerful story about what it means to find home and identity among conflict and migration.'
Sara Saleh on Writing Women's History into Fiction
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2023
26992236
2023
single work
podcast
interview
'Sara Saleh is an award-winning writer, poet, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon. Her poems, short stories, and essays have been widely published nationally in English and Arabic. She is co-editor of the groundbreaking 2019 anthology Arab, Australian, Other, and made history as the first poet to win both the Australian Book Review's 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2020. Songs for the Dead and the Living (2023) is her first novel.' (Introduction)
'According to the UN, almost 6 million Palestinians are refugees, meaning that almost half of all Palestinians are unable to return to their homes. The violent, and ongoing, dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people has become known as the Nakba—the Catastrophe—and from it are born millions of stories of movement and exile, of hope and unflagging determination.'
'According to the UN, almost 6 million Palestinians are refugees, meaning that almost half of all Palestinians are unable to return to their homes. The violent, and ongoing, dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people has become known as the Nakba—the Catastrophe—and from it are born millions of stories of movement and exile, of hope and unflagging determination.'
'Sara M. Saleh is a writer and human rights lawyer. She has won two of Australia’s most prestigious poetry prizes: Overland’s Judith Wright Poetry Prize in 2020 and Australian Book Review’s Peter Porter Poetry Prize in 2021. She has published extensively in literary and poetry journals, and co-edited Arab, Australian, Other: Stories on Race and Identity with Randa Abdel-Fattah.' (Introduction)
'A powerful story about what it means to find home and identity among conflict and migration.'
Sara Saleh on Writing Women's History into Fiction
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2023
26992236
2023
single work
podcast
interview
'Sara Saleh is an award-winning writer, poet, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon. Her poems, short stories, and essays have been widely published nationally in English and Arabic. She is co-editor of the groundbreaking 2019 anthology Arab, Australian, Other, and made history as the first poet to win both the Australian Book Review's 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2020. Songs for the Dead and the Living (2023) is her first novel.' (Introduction)
