The Tribe: Anniversary Launch

Join us for the official launch of the ten-year anniversary edition of The Tribe.

Originally published in 2014, this debut novel by Michael Mohammed Ahmad was one of Australia’s first humanising and intimate portrayals of Western Sydney’s Arab and Muslim communities.

The Tribe went on to win the 2015 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelists Award, and was shortlisted for the Voss Literary Prize, the UTS Glenda Adams Award and the Readings Prize. The Tribe was subsequently published in China in a translation by Professor Li Yao, and adapted for the stage with Janice Muller for Urban Theatre Projects.

In recognition of The Tribe’s ongoing legacy and cultural impact, Giramondo Publishing have released a stunning ten-year anniversary edition of the book, which includes a new format and cover artwork by acclaimed visual artist, Shireen Taweel, and a powerful preface by Australia’s leading scholar on the literature of the Arab diaspora, Dr Jumana Bayeh.

To celebrate the re-release of this iconic text, Dr Jumana Bayeh will facilitate a necessary and timely dialogue with Michael Mohammed Ahmad about the role of literature in shaping global opinions on the cultural ‘other’. The audience will also be treated to a special introductory performance reading by award-winning Palestinian-Australian poet and author, Sara M Saleh.    

Author biographies:

Michael Mohammed Ahmad is the founding director of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and the author of three award-winning novels: The Tribe (Giramondo, 2014), The Lebs (Hachette, 2018) and The Other Half of You (Hachette, 2021). He is also the editor of several critically acclaimed anthologies, including After Australia (Affirm Press, 2020). Mohammed received his Doctorate of Creative Arts from Western Sydney University in 2017.

Jumana Bayeh is a Senior Lecturer at Macquarie University and author of The Literature of the Lebanese Diaspora. Her current projects include an examination of the nation-state in Arab diaspora writing over the last century and a collaborative project that investigates riots and literature.

Sara M Saleh is a human rights lawyer, community organiser and writer. She is the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon, and lives on Gadigal land. Sara is the first poet to win both the Australian Book Review’s Peter Porter Poetry Prize (2021) and Overland’s Judith Wright Poetry Prize (2020). She is the co-editor of the ground-breaking anthology Arab, Australian, Other and the author of Songs for the Dead and the Living (Affirm Press, 2023) and The Flirtation of Girls (UQP, 2023).