Read
an Excerpt:
Seventy-five
years ago a man called Ali Abdul found himself in
serious trouble with the law. He was a nondescript sort
of Indian, a quiet man who kept to himself more through
circumstance than any inclination. His hands, scarred
and roughened by years of hard physical labour belonged
to a man more used to handling an axe and a pick and
shovel than someone sitting at a desk or standing behind
a counter selling fruit and lollies although that was
how he made his living later in life. The wrinkles
lining his face came from years of working outside in
the open, but the brown of his skin disguised the deep
lines. I can’t swear to it but I think he was a bit of
a loner. Not your usual city Muslim, Ali now owned a
small shop in Abernathy Street, Redfern, a working class
enclave in inner Sydney.
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Reviews:
Owen Richardson
- The Age:
" ... HANIFA Deen went looking in the archives
and into her own past and this highly engaging
collection of narratives is the result...."
Full
Review
Carlene Ellwood - The
Sunday Tasmanian:
" ...Deen says there are lessons to be learnt from looking at the way we were...."A lot of the stories
here explain some of the moral ambiguities, some of the strange
ironies that trouble us today....You don't escape a racist
past overnight; it does shape you...."
Full
Review
Gillian Bramley-Moore
- The Courier Mail:
" ...Deen's lively chronicles about Mahomet Allum,
a herbalist who was irresistible to women, bush battler Ali
Abdul and Sam the pearl diver, who led a special SAS team in
World War II and yet was thwarted in his efforts to be
naturalised, are confronting. Yet Deen avoids preaching,
telling with humour all sides of the story...."
Full
Review
Jose Borghino - The
Australian
" ....To her credit, Deen balances such stories of
institutionalised racism and cruelty with examples of ordinary
(white) Australians deviating from the twisted
"normality" around them and treating Muslims with
humanity and generosity of spirit. The White Australia Policy
was eventually dismantled...."
Full
Review
Sarah Drummond - Overland:
" ...Deen’s humour and feistiness prevails
throughout this book...She deftly spins narrative nonfiction
into a ripping yarn of the outback, the courts and the openly
racist application of immigration dictation tests...Hanifa
Deen is also unafraid to throw in a chuckle, a pointedly
personal take on an ambiguous piece of historiography with a
raised textual eyebrow: ‘Not bloody likely!’...."
Full
Review
Wendy Alexander
- Transnational Literature:
" ...The style is accessible, and exemplary of the
narrative nonfiction-genre in which Deen has previously
published...."
Full
Review
Interviews
Hanifa Deen with Meri
Fatin of Morning Magazine
The
Interview...
Afternoons with Gillian
O'Shaughnessy - 720 ABC Perth
" ...When did we
start having these debates about Muslim culture in Australia?
Conversations about the burkha, about refugees of Muslim
origin? Just in these last few years? Or further back....Well
you might not realise it, but the conversation goes back a
whole lot further than that...right back to 1890 when the
first Muslim cameleers and hawkers arrived and then somehow
slipped through the net of the White Australia Policy...."
The
Interview
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