What Elise Wrote-Review-Growing up Muslim in Australia

Elise’s reveiw: Coming of Age: Growing up Muslim in Australia

Anthology contributors: Randa Abdel-Fattah, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Tanveer Ahmed, Ali Alizadeh, Amal Awad, Tasneem Chopra, Arwa El Masri, Hazem El Masri, Bianca Elmir, Sabrina Houssami, Alyena Mohummadally, Irfan Yusuf

Shortlisted for the 2015 Children’s Book Council of Australia Eve Pownall Award for Information Books and was selected by the Grattan Institute for the 2015 Summer Reading List for Prime Minister.

My thoughts on this book:

Muslim people in Australia come from over seventy countries and represent a wide variety of cultural backgrounds.

The stories in Coming of Age: Growing up Muslim in Australia are heartfelt and show unfamiliar images of Muslim people: a young female boxer, a young woman struggling to reconcile her sexual identity with her faith, a ten-year-old boy who renounces religion.

‘Coming of Age is the kind of book that will change how readers look at the world. Coloured with many shades of humour, warmth, sadness, anger, determination and honesty, it will resonate with readers from all backgrounds and beliefs.’ Bookseller +Publisher

Author bio:

Amra Pajalic is a Melbourne-based author of Bosnian background. Her debut novel The Good Daughter won the 2009 Melbourne Prize for Literature’s Civic Choice Award, was a finalist in the 2009 Melbourne Prize for Literature Best Writing Award and was shortlisted in the 2007 Victorian Premier’s Awards for Best Unpublished Manuscript. Garratt Publishing will publish her novel for children, Amir: Friend on Loan, in 2014. Amra’s short stories have placed in competitions, and been published in magazines, journals and anthologies. Her fiction has appeared in the 2004 and 2005 Best Australian Stories and her memoir piece was published in Etchings. Amra conducts short-story workshops and was funded by Artists in Schools to be an Artist in Residence in 2010, 2011 and 2012 in high schools. Her website is http://www.amrapajalic.com

Demet Divaroren was born in Adana, Turkey, and migrated to Australia with her family when she was six months old. She writes long and short fiction and non-fiction exploring life, love and the complexities of human emotions. Demet’s writing has appeared in Island magazine, Scribe’s New Australian Stories anthology, the Age Epicure and The Big Issue, and she was commended in the Ada Cambridge Biographical Prose Prize 2013. Her first novel Orayt? was shortlisted for the 2008 Australian Vogel Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript. She is the recipient of an Australia Council Artstart Grant, a Rosebank Residential Writing Fellowship, a Varuna Fellowship for a Writing Retreat and a Glenfern Grace Marion Wilson Fellowship. Demet is the Artist in Residence at Deer Park Art Spaces, where she facilitates writing workshops. She is represented by Curtis Brown literary agency. Her website is http://www.demetdivaroren.com

Amra and Demet are co-authors of the book What a Muslim Woman Looks Like, a government-funded publication.

Anthology contributors: Randa Abdel-Fattah, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Tanveer Ahmed, Ali Alizadeh, Amal Awad, Tasneem Chopra, Arwa El Masri, Hazem El Masri, Bianca Elmir, Sabrina Houssami, Alyena Mohummadally, Irfan Yusuf

Shortlisted for the 2015 Children’s Book Council of Australia Eve Pownall Award for Information Books and was selected by the Grattan Institute for the 2015 Summer Reading List for Prime Minister.

This book is an enlightening look at young Muslim people growing up in Australia.

What do you think?

Have a lovely day, Elise