Author talk with Yassmin Abdel-Magied

Note: Yassmin will be appearing on screen via Zoom. Those attending in person will join Michael Mohammed Ahmad at the bookshop!

With her trademark optimism, sass, boldness and search for answers, across a collection of new and revisited essays, Yassmin Abdel-Magied explores resistance, transformation, and revolution.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied started out a dynamic, optimistic, naïve, youthful grass-roots organiser and oil rig worker before she found herself taking on the heft of the Australian political and media establishment, unintentionally.

From her new home in Europe she brings her characteristic warmth, clarity and inquisitive nature to the concepts of 'the private and public self' and 'systems and society' that structure this collection.

In 'The Private and Public Self’, Yassmin shares her passions for cars and cryptocurrency as well as the personal challenges around her activism and leaving Australia. She provides a hearty defence of hobbies and expands on the value and process of carving out a private life and self in an incredibly public-facing world. The concept of identity when one is a 'forever migrant' - by ancestry, and by choice - is interrogated, as is what it means to organise for social justice when you aren't sure where you belong.

In 'Systems and Society’, through essays on cultural appropriation, the meaning of citizenship, and unconscious bias, Yassmin charts how her thinking on activism, transformative change and justice has evolved. She brings an abolitionist lens to social justice work and, recalling her days as a young revolutionary, encourages younger generations of activists to decide if it is empowerment they are working towards, or power.

In all these essays, written with the passion, lived-experience and intelligence of someone who wants to improve our world, the concept of revolution, however big or small, is ever-present.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese Australian writer, recovering mechanical engineer and award-winning social advocate who writes and speaks on politics, society, culture and technology. She has published three books with Penguin Random House, including two middle grade novels (You Must Be Layla and the award-winning Listen, Layla), which she is now adapting for screen. Yassmin is also developing a slate of projects for the stage and screen. A globally sought-after adviser on issues at the intersections of race, gender and faith, Yassmin has spoken in over twenty-five countries on social justice and inclusive leadership. She founded her first organisation, Youth Without Borders, at the age of sixteen, leading it for nine years before co-founding two other organisations focused on serving women of colour. Her TED talk ‘What does my headscarf mean to you?’ has been viewed over 2.5 million times and was selected as one of TED’s top 10 ideas. In all her work, Yassmin is an advocate for transformative justice and a fairer, safer world for all.

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. His much anticipated third novel, The Other Half of You (Hachette Australia) was published in 2021.